R v Jack Douglas

On 9 March 2024, the applicant (then aged 16) murdered Sacad Ali. On 24 May 2024, in the Crown Court at Sheffield, he pleaded guilty at the first reasonable opportunity. On 28 November 2024, he was sentenced by the Recorder of Sheffield (His Honour Judge Jeremy Richardson KC) to detention at His Majesty's pleasure, with a minimum term of 14 years and 106 days. For an associated offence of having an article with a blade or point, a concurrent term of 12 months' detention was imposed.

The applicant now renews his application for leave to appeal against the minimum term following refusal by the single judge.

The offence occurred against a background of drug dealing. The applicant and his friend, Barney Griffin (who was aged 17) had been recruited to run a drugs telephone line to facilitate street dealing.

Mr Ali (aged 25) had apparently begun dealing drugs in the same area. In the early hours of 9 March 2024, the deceased was lured to Ponderosa Park in Sheffield by Rebecca Moore, a sex worker, who was a drug user and a customer of the line that the applicant and Griffin ran. Moore went on to tell a friend that she had set up the deceased to be killed to protect the line.

Having met Moore, the deceased encountered the applicant and Griffin who came up behind him carrying large knives. The deceased himself was carrying a large knife.

The applicant and Griffin set about the deceased. They repeatedly stabbed him. The deceased backed away, but the applicant and Griffin continued the attack. The deceased was screaming and was heard to say, "All right now lads, I'm hurt. Leave it".

The emergency services attended but could do nothing to save the deceased. There was a fatal wound to the left thigh which had severed the main artery. There were five other deep penetrating stab wounds to the hip and abdomen, and several serious stab wounds to the right arm, one of which had cut through bone. Other defensive injuries were noted.

The applicant and Griffin fled the scene and disposed of the knives and their clothing. On 12 March 2024, they both handed themselves in to the police. Shortly before doing so, the applicant messaged his father, saying "What I've done is disgusting and makes me feel sick to think about it. I have tried to do the right thing, which is handing myself in".

The applicant had no previous convictions. He had a caution for supplying cannabis in 2023. That formed part of the admitted background of his recruitment into supplying drugs.

A pre-sentence report and a psychiatric report were available at the sentencing hearing. The reports detailed a history of childhood emotional neglect and domestic abuse within the family, which led to Social Services categorising the applicant as a child in need. He had ADHD, which was not under control at the time of the offence due to the applicant not taking his medication. He had been identified as a victim of exploitation and described being in fear of older gang members. The applicant had expressed genuine remorse for taking Mr Ali's life and for the impact of his actions on others. He had behaved well on remand. He had attained champion level (the highest level) and was on the junior leadership team. He was engaging well with education and therapeutic interventions.

The judge identified that the sentencing exercise was not straightforward. A particular complexity resulted from the difference in age between the applicant and Griffin. To give context to this, the applicant and Griffin had been best friends since starting primary school. They were in the same school year. Griffin was born in November 2006, and the applicant in June 2007. They had the same interests; both were keen footballers and were described as inseparable.

The judge who had heard the evidence at the trial of Moore found that the applicant and Griffin were both fully involved in the attack; that both had an easy way with knives which were integral to their drug dealing operation; and that both used sustained violence on the deceased. He also concluded that both were similarly immature and similarly streetwise. In short, their levels of maturity and of culpability were the same. The difficulty resulted from the fact that Griffin was 17 at the date of the offence, whereas the applicant was 16.

Parliament has identified, through Schedule 21 to the Sentencing Act 2020, as amended, different starting points to be applied in assessing the appropriate minimum term for an offender aged 16 and one aged 17. As each offender was to be sentenced on the basis of taking a knife to the scene for the purposes of violence, the starting point in the applicant's case was 17 years' custody, whereas for Griffin it was 23 years' custody.

The judge said that he could not ignore the will of Parliament that a distinction should be drawn between an offender aged 16 and one aged 17, but that he had endeavoured to achieve a level of equality between them, reflecting his findings that they were almost identical in terms of their personal circumstances and culpability.

Moore was in a different position. She was an adult offender. The judge was unable to be sure that she had known that the applicant and Griffin were carrying knives. The relevant starting point for the minimum term in her case was 15 years' custody.

The judge identified that the same aggravating factors applied to both Griffin and the applicant. This was a planned and premeditated attack – planned because of the encroachment on their drug dealing territory. It involved sustained violence, whereby the deceased was pursued with determination and vicious force. Both were intoxicated, but knew what they were doing. This was a group attack.

In relation to mitigation, the judge said that both Griffin and the applicant were immature and had a raft of problems in their young lives. Neither had previous convictions – he ignored the applicant's caution. He accepted that the intention was to cause really serious injury, rather than to kill. There was evidence to suggest that Griffin and the applicant had been corrupted and exploited by other criminals involved in drugs, albeit that they were not peripheral participants.

The judge set out his analysis showing how he had approached his aim of achieving equality between the applicant and Griffin so far as he was able within the constraints set by Parliament. For Griffin, the judge took the starting point of 23 years. He said that the various mitigating factors reduced that to 19 years. The aggravating factors justified an increase to 21 years. That was then to be reduced further to 20 years to reflect a feature that applied only to Griffin. When sentenced, Griffin had passed his 18^th birthday. An offender sentenced while under the age of 18 is entitled to seek the review of his minimum term after he has served half of that term. As a result of delay in sentencing him, Griffin had lost that right, whereas the applicant, who was 17 when sentenced, retained the right. The judge made some allowance for that point, having been invited to do so as a matter of fairness, given that Griffin had not contributed in any way to the delay between the offending and the sentencing. The judge then allowed credit of one-sixth for the guilty plea. He calculated that as three years and eight months, which he said he was prepared modestly to increase to four years as Griffin was in exactly the same position as the applicant. In that way, he arrived at a minimum term of 16 years, before allowing for the time spent on remand.

In the applicant's case, the judge took the starting point of 17 years. He reduced it to 15 years for the various mitigating factors, and increased it to 18 years for the aggravating factors. Allowing for a one-sixth reduction produced a minimum term of 15 years, from which the time spent on remand was deducted.

In Moore's case the judge found that the aggravating and mitigating factors cancelled each other out so as to arrive back at the starting point identified for her of 15 years. No real comparison can be drawn between the applicant and Moore who, as we have said, was in an wholly different position.

By his proposed grounds of appeal, the applicant contends that the judge should have made a downward adjustment from the starting point of 17 years before affording him credit for his guilty plea; or at the very least should not have made an upwards adjustment. Further, it is argued that the judge gave more weight to the aggravating factors in the applicant's case than he did in that of Griffin, or indeed in the case of the adult offender, Moore. Alternatively, it is said that the judge did not give sufficient weight to the applicant's mitigating factors.

The applicant has been represented before us by Mr Richard Thyne KC, who appeared at trial and who has acted pro bono on this renewed application, assisted in the preparation of the written documents by his junior, Miss Rebecca Tanner. We are very grateful to them for the extremely helpful and well focused written submissions, and to Mr Thyne for the conspicuously careful way in which he has presented the application before us this morning. His oral submissions were well focused and concentrated on the real points in the case.

Mr Thyne took a realistic approach. He has acknowledged that the offence was serious and has also acknowledged the care with which the judge approached the sentencing exercise. The renewed application has been advanced before us essentially on the basis of one point. It is argued that the judge was wrong to uplift the minimum term in the applicant's case on the basis that the aggravating factors in his case outweighed the mitigation. It is suggested that it was wrong in principle for the judge to single out the applicant and to give more weight to the aggravating factors in his case than to the mitigating factors, especially in light of his findings about the equal culpability of the applicant and Griffin. Had the judge adopted the same uplift for the aggravating factors for the applicant as he did for Griffin, the notional minimum term before credit for the guilty pleas, and for time on remand, would have been no more than 17 years, not 18 years.

In his submissions today, Mr Thyne has stressed the mitigating factors that were available to the applicant, namely: the fact that there was no intention to kill; that there was a background of child exploitation; that, other than the caution, the applicant was of good character; that he had been subject to adverse childhood experiences; and that he suffered from ADHD, which had an indirect effect in the commission of the offence. Mr Thyne also relies on the applicant's voluntary surrender to the police, which he rightly says is unusual, and the remorse shown by the applicant, which is supported by his early guilty plea. Mr Thyne argues that the strong mitigation ought to have led the judge to conclude that the mitigation outweighed the aggravating features, or at least to say that the mitigation cancelled the aggravating features out. In those circumstances he argues that the judge arrived at a minimum term in the applicant's case that was manifestly excessive.

As was recognised by the judge and by Mr Thyne, this was a difficult sentencing exercise which presented a significant challenge in seeking to achieve fairness between the applicant and Griffin. The fact that their birthdays fell either side of the date of the offence resulted in a very significant disparity in the starting points set out in Schedule 21. Had the judge taken a mechanistic approach, this could have produced a difference in the eventual minimum terms imposed on each of as much as six years. In the context of the judge's findings that the two offenders were to be viewed as being in an identical position in terms of culpability and levels of maturity, that would not have been a fair outcome. Although Mr Thyne submits that the seven month age gap between the applicant and Griffin was not insignificant, it is right to say that in most other aspects of life the age difference between them made no material difference. They had gone through the school years together and had played football in the same age group. They were best friends who spent most of their time together. The judge recognised that the difference in their chronological ages could not be ignored, while having regard to the statutory scheme. However, it is apparent that he sought to mitigate what would otherwise have been a significant disparity between the two young offenders.

The judge took conspicuous care in his approach to sentencing and in crafting his sentencing remarks. He sought arithmetically to detail his route to the eventual minimum terms. The complaint now pursued relates essentially to one aspect of that calculation and to the comparison between the way in which the judge approached the aggravating factors in the applicant's case and in Griffin's case, and the balance struck between the aggravating factors and the mitigating factors.

It would not, of course, be appropriate to uplift the applicant's minimum term to a level above that which would have been appropriate had he been sentenced alone, in order to narrow the gap between him and Griffin. All that the judge could do was to mitigate the term he might otherwise have passed on 17 year old Griffin. In attempting to show a fair approach to that, the judge appears to have overlooked the fact that the uplift he applied for the common aggravating factors was less for Griffin than it was for the applicant.

Having considered the sentencing remarks as a whole and seen how the judge approached the exercise, we are entirely satisfied that he did not inflate the applicant's minimum term in order to achieve greater parity with Griffin. In our judgment, the judge was entitled to say that the significant aggravating factors, which he carefully identified in his sentencing remarks, outweighed the mitigation. In limiting the uplift for aggravating factors in Griffin's case, he may have been generous to him. Strictly speaking, the judge was also not entitled to give Griffin greater than one sixth credit for his guilty plea. In fact, he had miscalculated one sixth of 20 years. The correct calculation would have resulted in credit of three years and four months. That error meant that the adjustment the judge made was rather more generous than he intended.

However, the judge's leniency towards Griffin allowed him to arrive at a position which reflected the young offenders' different chronological ages, but where that difference was not so great as to give rise to a real sense of injustice for the slightly older offender.

Standing back, we have asked ourselves whether it is arguable that the minimum term imposed on the applicant was manifestly excessive. In our view, it was not. It fairly reflected all the features of the case, including the aggravating and mitigating factors, and the applicant's early guilty plea.

In our view, the judge's careful approach struck an appropriate balance in the applicant's case. It produced a minimum term that was not manifestly excessive.

In those circumstances, we agree with the single judge that leave to appeal against the minimum term should be refused.

However, the Registrar has drawn to our attention the fact that the sentence passed on count 2 (possession of the knife the applicant used in the attack) was not a lawful one. The judge was not able to pass a sentence of detention for 12 months, although he could have passed a detention and training order for the same period. This makes no practical difference whatsoever, since the sentence was subsumed by the minimum term and is to be served concurrently.

Accordingly, we shall grant limited leave to appeal solely for the purpose of allowing us to quash the unlawful sentence on count 2. To that extent only we grant leave and allow the appeal. We quash the sentence of 12 months' detention and impose instead a concurrent 12 month detention and training order on count 2.