A sentencing court cannot take into account factors neither admitted by nor proved against the defendant. The cases sought to be allowed for by the Crown were representative but unadmitted counts. It offended a fundamental principle of sentencing for the defendant to be sentenced not only for the four specific offences of which he has been convicted after a trial, but also for other offences of which the four were specimens; offences of which the defendant had been neither convicted, nor to which he had pleaded guilty nor agreed to have taken into consideration.
Lord Bingham LCJ said: ‘[The defendant] may be sentenced only for an offence proved against him (by admission or verdict) or which he has admitted and asked the court to take into consideration when passing sentence: see Anderson [1978] A.C. 964. If, as we think, these are basic principles underlying the administration of the criminal law, it is not easy to see how a defendant can lawfully be punished for offences for which he has not been indicted and which he has denied or declined to admit.’
Lord Bingham LCJ
Times 21-Jul-1997, Gazette 17-Sep-1997, [1997] EWCA Crim 1773, [1998] 1 Cr App R(S) 243, [1998] 1 Cr App R 79, [1998] 1 All ER 42, [1998] 1 WLR 604, 151201, [1997] Crim LR 766
Bailii
England and Wales
Citing:
Cited – Regina v Huchison CACD 1972
For the judge to form his own judgment of the evidence he has heard on the extent of the offending conduct beyond the instances specified in individual counts is to ‘deprive the appellant of his right to trial by jury in respect of the other alleged . .
Cited – Regina v Anderson; Anderson v Director of Public Prosecutions HL 1978
A defendant may be sentenced only for an offence proved against him (by admission or verdict) or which he has admitted and asked the court to take into consideration when passing sentence. . .
Cited by:
Cited – Regina v Willoughby CACD 5-Nov-1998
Appeal against conviction dismissed. Appeal against sentence for offences of false imprisonment, indecent assault and assault occasioning actual bodily harm. The sentences were life imprisonment for the offence of false imprisonment, with . .
Cited – Tovey and Another v Regina CACD 9-Mar-2005
Each defendant appealed sentences where he had committed a series of offences and the sentence had been for specimen acts.
Held: When choosing representative offences a prosecutor should be careful to try to give the court a proper picture of . .
Cited – Clifford, Regina v CACD 7-Nov-2014
The defendant appealed against his sentence to eight years imprisonment on 8 counts of indecent assault. The offences occurred between 1977 and 1984.
Held: Each of the victims was young and vulnerable and the assaults had had continuing . .
Cited – Hartley, Regina v CACD 12-May-2011
. .
Lists of cited by and citing cases may be incomplete.
Criminal Sentencing
Leading Case
Updated: 01 November 2021; Ref: scu.151228