Christopher Donaldson v R

This is a renewed application for permission to appeal against sentence, leave having been refused by the single judge.

On 22 March 2023, the applicant was convicted after a trial at Leeds Crown Court of three offences: murder, section 18 wounding with intent and assault occasioning actual bodily harm. The applicant was sentenced to life imprisonment for murder. The judge imposed a minimum term in accordance with Schedule 21 to the Sentencing Act 2020 of 24 years less time served on remand. This minimum term took account of the criminality involved in all three offences, and also of totality.

These convictions arose out of events on 2 September 2022. Lorraine Hargreaves, the applicant's then-girlfriend, had gone to sell some stolen goods at a property and became embroiled in a fight with a man called Donald Price. She returned and falsely told the applicant and another man, Anthony Sladek, that she had been assaulted by Price. The applicant went to the property with Hargreaves and Sladek and joined in an assault on Price, in which Price was hit and kicked in the head by the applicant. This was the section 47 actual bodily harm count.

Subsequently, Price, along with two associates, Cain Adams and Anthony Steel, went to the property in which Hargreaves was living to take revenge. They were armed with weapons. Another fight broke out. The applicant, who had been drinking, armed himself with a knife from an upstairs kitchen and came downstairs to join the fray. Price attacked the applicant with a chain, causing a wound to his head and the applicant stabbed Price in the head in return. This was the section 18 offence.

Further fighting took place before Anthony Steel saw that the applicant had a knife. He went towards the applicant to disarm him. By this stage Steel was unarmed. The applicant stabbed Steel three times: once in the back, once to the head and once to the chest. Steel died of his injuries.

The applicant was aged 45 at the time of sentence. He had 44 convictions for 109 offences during the period from March 1990 to May 2022. These included five offences against the person.

The judge rejected the contention on behalf of the applicant that he had acted in self-defence. Steel was unarmed and had been no threat to the applicant. The judge decided that the starting point for the purposes of Schedule 21 was 15 years, as the applicant had not taken a knife to the scene. However, it was an aggravating factor that he had taken a knife from upstairs and had taken it downstairs to use in the fight. The victim had suffered three knife injuries, including one in the back. The judge regarded the applicant's history of violent offending as an aggravating feature. These included a conviction for wounding with intent in 2019. The applicant had shown no remorse. The judge accepted in mitigation that there had been no intention to kill and that the attack which led to the murder and the section 18 offence had not been premeditated. The judge decided that the appropriate minimum term for the murder alone would have been 21 years. He considered that the appropriate sentence for the two other offences would have been nine years in total, on the basis that the sentence for the actual bodily harm offence would have been consecutive. But he reduced the additional part of the minimum term attributable to these other offences to three years because of totality, and also because he bore in mind that the applicant would not have served the full term of a determinate sentence in prison for those two offences.

The applicant has put forward three grounds of appeal. These were (1) that the judge's initial starting point of 21 years' imprisonment for the offence of murder was too high, (2) that the judge failed to have sufficient regard to the principle of totality, and (3) that the minimum term imposed was manifestly excessive.

In refusing permission to appeal, the single judge said as follows:

We have carefully considered the grounds of appeal that have been put forward on behalf of the applicant. We entirely agree with the single judge. For the reasons he gave, the grounds of appeal are not arguable and the application for permission to appeal is refused.