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 the defendant’s criminal behaviour. The court considered when a series of acts might properly be charged as one offence.
Judges:
Lord Woolf LCJ, Grigson J, Gross J
Citations:
[2005] EWCA Crim 530, Times 19-Apr-2005
Links:
Jurisdiction:
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 Clark CACD 1996
It was not open to a sentencer to sentence on the basis that the offence of which the defendant had been convicted was aggravated by unproved, separate and distinct offences. Henry LJ said that a defendant may only be sentenced for an offence that . .
Cited – Regina v Canavan, Kidd, Shaw CACD 10-Jul-1997
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 . .
Cited – Jemmison v Priddle 1972
‘it is legitimate to charge on a single information one activity even though the activity may involve more than one act’. . .
Cited – Regina v Merriman CACD 1973
Although the criminal division of the Court of Appeal is not so strictly bound by its own previous decisions as is the civil division, its liberty to depart from precedent which it is convinced was erroneous is restricted to cases where the . .
Cited – Regina v Evans CACD 18-May-1999
There would need to have been 200 or more counts to reflect the full extent of the financial gain that the offender had obtained.
Held: If an indictment were drafted containing that number of counts, it would prove unmanageable if tried by a . .
Cited – Hodgetts v Chiltern District Council HL 1983
The House was asked as to an alleged offence of non-compliance with an enforcement notice under section 89(1) of the 1971 Act, and particularly: ‘Whether an information which alleges initial failure to comply with the provisions of an enforcement . .
Cited – Attorney General’s Reference (No. 82 of 2002) CA 2003
Where a defendant was thought to have committed a wide range of offences but faced only representative charges, then provided that the admitted basis on which an offender pleads guilty embraces that wider course of conduct, it was proper for a . .
Cited – Barton v Director of Public Prosecutions Admn 2001
The defendant appealed by way of case stated against the Stipendiary Magistrates’ decision that an information alleging theft of andpound;1,338.23 over a period of years did not offend against the rule that an information should only allege a single . .
Cited – Director of Public Prosecutions v McCabe 1993
The defendant had 76 library books at his home which he had taken from one or more of the 32 different branches of a county library. He was convicted of a single offence of theft in relation to those books. . .
Cited – Cullen v Jardine CACD 1995
90 trees were felled by the defendant without a licence over a period of three days.
Held: May LJ: ‘It was entirely possible for magistrates to decide which trees were cut down illegally and which were not, and to impose penalties by reference . .
Lists of cited by and citing cases may be incomplete.
Criminal Sentencing
Updated: 29 June 2022; Ref: scu.223367