The several defendants appealed against sentences imposed for acts preparatory to terrorism. Each had been involved to a lesser extent than principals in a larger circle.
Held: Leveson LJ said: ‘Although potentially highly relevant both to culpability and potential harm (and, thus, of importance for the purpose of fixing the punitive part of any sentence) in our judgment, when assessing the future risk to the public, too much weight should not be placed on conversations for the purpose of ascribing comparative sophistication: it is not implausible that some self-publicists will talk ‘big’ and other, more serious plotters, may be more careful and keep their own counsel . . It is not the purpose of this judgment to seek to set out guidelines or indicative sentences for terrorism which comes in many different forms. Offences range from murder, attempted murder and conspiracy to murder, through causing explosions likely to endanger life or cause serious injury to property (s.2 of the Explosive Substances Act 1883), conspiracy or possession with intent to cause explosions likely to endanger life or cause serious injury to property (s.3 of the 1883 Act) to engaging in conduct in preparation for or assisting in committing acts of terrorism contrary to s.5 of the Terrorism Act 2006. This last offence is particularly wide covering acts just short of an attempt to conduct that only just crosses the line into criminality.
A number of principles, however, can be properly emphasised. First, as with any criminal offence, s.143 of the Criminal Justice Act 2003 directs the sentence(r) to consider culpability and harm: in most terrorist cases the former will be extremely high. Second, the purpose of sentence for the most serious terrorist offences is to punish deter and incapacitate. Rehabilitation will play little, if any part: see Martin [1999] 1 Cr App R (S) 477. Third, the starting point for sentence for an inchoate offence is the sentence that would have been imposed if the objective had been achieved with an attempt to commit the offence being more serious than a conspiracy; see Barot [2008] 1 Cr App R (S) 31. Fourth, sentences that can be derived from Martin – or, indeed, any cases before the impact of Schedule 21 of the Criminal Justice Act 2003 identifying minimum terms for murder – are of historical interest only and do not provide any assistance as to the approach which should now be adopted: for the impact of Schedule 21 in uplifting determinate sentences, see AG’s Reference Nos 85-87 of 2007 [2008] 2 Cr App R (S) 45 and, in relation to terrorism, Jalil [2009] 2 Cr App R (s) 40 at paras. 22 and 24.
Finally, because of the enormous breadth of potential offences (and, consequently, the differing potential assessment of culpability and harm depending on the precise facts), we do not consider it appropriate to seek to provide guidelines based on these cases alone (or a combination of these cases and those in Jalil). If guidelines are needed, a better course would be for the offences to be considered by the Sentencing Council for England and Wales although we readily accept that (the) breadth of s.5 of the Terrorism Act 2006 would make the task of providing guidelines extremely difficult.’
Judges:
Leveson LJ, Mitting, Sweeney JJ
Citations:
[2013] EWCA Crim 468
Links:
Statutes:
Jurisdiction:
England and Wales
Cited by:
Cited – Dart and Others v Regina CACD 31-Oct-2014
The defendants had been convicted on guilty pleas of offences under the 2006 Act. Dart had been sentenced to a six year term and a five year extended sentence. Other received shorter and longer sentences as appropriate. They now applied for leave to . .
Lists of cited by and citing cases may be incomplete.
Criminal Sentencing
Updated: 17 November 2022; Ref: scu.472602