R v Matthew Barker

On 28 April 2025, in the Crown Court at Leicester, the appellant, Matthew Barker, was sentenced for a number of offences which can conveniently be summarised as follows.

First, he was sentenced to 22 months' imprisonment on count 2, namely an offence of aggravated vehicle taking contrary to section 12A of the Theft Act and he was also sentenced to 5 months' imprisonment on count 3, namely an offence of driving whilst disqualified. That sentence to be served consecutively. Those offences concerned an Audi A3 car with a registration number SW17 FLP. On 29 December 2022, the appellant and a female friend went to a car dealership. The appellant pretended to have an interest in buying a car. He and the friend got into the car with the dealer standing by. The appellant asked what the price of the car was. He then drove off at speed, taking the car without the owner's consent. The Audi he was driving was chased by the police. There then followed a 40-minute pursuit, during which a police car pulled in front of the Audi. The appellant accelerated and rammed the police car. The damage to the police car was approximately £10,000 and the damage to the Audi that he had taken was around £4,000. The appellant was also driving that car whilst he was disqualified from driving, which was the second offence.

Secondly, the appellant was sentenced on count 1 to a further sentence of 5 months' imprisonment, again for taking a vehicle without consent. That was also to be served consecutively. That offence concerned an incident 6 months earlier, in June 2022, when the appellant had again gone to a car dealership asking to look at a car. He was handed the keys, this time to a Mercedes and he drove off in the car without the owner's consent.

Thirdly, he was sentenced on count 5 for another offence of taking a vehicle without the owner's consent. He was sentenced to 5 months' imprisonment, again to be served consecutively, and 5 months' imprisonment also consecutive for driving whilst disqualified. The pattern was the same. The appellant went to see a car, sat in the car, pretending to be interested in buying it and pretended to listen to the engine. He then drove off in the car at speed without the owner's consent.

As a result, for the driving offences the sentence was 22 months' imprisonment for the lead offence of aggravated vehicle taking and a further 20 months in total, comprising 5 months for each of the four other offences. He was also disqualified from driving for 38 months and until he had passed an extended driving test.

Finally, the appellant was convicted of an offence of failing to surrender to bail. He was sentenced to 10 months' imprisonment for that offence. He attended the Crown Court on 1 April 2025 and changed his pleas to the other offences to guilty. The sentence was adjourned to 4 April 2025 and the appellant was granted bail which required him to attend court on 4 April 2025. He did not attend court. A warrant for his arrest was issued and the police detained him and he was then remanded custody. The total sentence, including that 10 months, was therefore 52 months' imprisonment.

The appellant was 52 years old at the time of sentence. He had 38 convictions for 120 offences committed between 1991 and about 2024. Sixty-four of those offences were offences of theft or similar offences including a number of offences of taking vehicles without consent and theft or attempted theft of the vehicles. The judge did not consider that a pre-sentence report was necessary, and we agree.

The appellant appeals against the sentence imposed for failing to surrender to bail. He has a right of appeal in respect of this offence. In addition, the Registrar has referred the convictions for the four offences of 5 months' imprisonment to be served consecutively on the grounds that these were summary offences when the sentencing powers of the Crown Court were limited to the powers exercisable by a Magistrates' Court. We grant leave to appeal in respect of these four offences.

The Crown Court could only deal with the offender for each of the summary offences in the manner that a Magistrates' Court could deal with them (see section 40(2) of the 1988 Act). Section 131 of the Magistrates' Court Act provides that a Magistrates' Court can impose consecutive sentences but the aggregate term of such sentences shall not exceed 6 months. In the present case therefore, the Crown Court was wrong to impose sentences of 5 months' imprisonment for each of the four summary offences, and to order that those sentences be served consecutively. That resulted in an aggregate term of 20 months rather than the total 6 months which is permitted under the legislation. That error needs to be corrected. There are a number of ways in which it could be done. Whilst the individual sentences would in isolation be correct, for simplicity, we will do the following to rectify the error that occurred. First, the sentence of 22 months' imprisonment for count 2 is unaltered. That remains in place. But we quash the sentence of 5 months' imprisonment for driving whilst disqualified on count 3 and we substitute a sentence of 3 months' imprisonment to be served consecutively to the sentence for aggravated vehicle taking. Secondly, we quash the sentence of 5 months' imprisonment imposed on count 1, we substitute a sentence of 3 months' imprisonment to be served consecutively to the sentence for count 2. We quash the sentences of 5 months' imprisonment imposed on counts 5 and 6 and we substitute a sentence of 3 months' imprisonment on each, those sentences to be served concurrently. That results in a total sentence for the driving offences of 28 months. That is 22 months for the aggravated vehicle taking and a total of 6 months for the summary offences.

We turn next to the bail offence. The appellant was on police bail. As we have said, he attended at Leicester Crown Court on 1 April 2025. He pleaded guilty and the sentencing was adjourned until 4 April 2025. He was granted bail. He was under a duty to surrender to court on 4 April 2025 to be sentenced for the offences to which he had pleaded guilty. He did not surrender himself to court on 4 April 2025 and that hearing therefore had to be adjourned. A warrant for his arrest had to be issued so he could be detained to be sentenced for the offences for which he had pleaded guilty. He was arrested on 6 April 2025, and he was produced to the Crown Court the next day and remanded in custody. Another sentencing hearing had to be fixed and he was finally sentenced on 28 April 2025. The sentencing judge said that the maximum sentence for failure to surrender to bail was 12 months, that the appellant had, as he put it, let him down badly and he would impose a sentence of 10 months' imprisonment for the offence. The judge did not refer to the Sentencing Council Guidelines for Bail Offences.

Mr Bulbring, who appeared on behalf of the appellant, submitted that 10 months' imprisonment was manifestly excessive. He submitted it was above the range of sentences for the most serious offences in the Sentencing Council Guidelines. He submitted that this was a less difficult interference with the administration of justice than had occurred in other cases where shorter sentences had been imposed. He referred us to R v Stokes [2014] EWCA Crim 2772, where a sentence of 8 months had been imposed even though there had been a period of 10 years’ absence; R v Armasuel [2014] EWCA Crim 991, where a sentence of 6 months had been imposed and R v Trabisohn [2005] EWCA 2282, where a sentence of 6 weeks was ultimately imposed where there had been a 3-month gap between failure to surrender and eventually the offender being returned to court.

Section 59 of the Sentencing Act 2020 provides that a court must when its sentencing an offender follow any sentencing guidelines which are relevant to the case unless the court is satisfied that it would be contrary to the interests of justice to do so. The Sentencing Guidelines provide for the categorisation of an offence of failure to surrender to bail. We are satisfied this is a category 1A offence within the guidelines. First in terms of culpability, this is category A, as the appellant deliberately sought to evade or delay justice. In terms of harm, it was category 1, as it did represent a serious interference with justice. Sentencing had been adjourned to 4 April 2025. The court was convened on 4 April 2025 at enormous public cost to hear and deal with the sentencing. That hearing had to be abandoned because the appellant failed, as he was required by law to do, to attend court. The police then had to be involved. They had to allocate resources to arresting the appellant and bringing him to jail and the sentencing hearing ultimately took place on 28 April 2025. We are satisfied that that is a serious interference with the administration of justice.

The starting point in the guidelines for a category 1A offence is 6 weeks' custody with a range from 28 days' custody to 26 weeks' custody. We are satisfied that this was a serious offence. The appellant was to be sentenced to a range of offences and knew full well the importance of attending the hearing on 4 April 2025. Furthermore, as indicated, he has an extensive record of previous convictions. That is an aggravating factor justifying an upward adjustment from the starting point in the Guidelines. Furthermore, the appellant has on other occasions failed to comply with court orders. He committed an offence whilst on bail in 2011 and he failed to comply with the requirements of a community order in 2014. That is also an aggravating factor justifying an upward adjustment from the starting point.

In all the particular circumstances of this case, a sentence in the region of 4 months' imprisonment would be the appropriate sentence for this offence. We therefore quash the sentence of 10 months' imprisonment and substitute a sentence of 4 months' imprisonment for this offence. That will be served consecutively, as it is right as a matter of principle that it should be served consecutively, and it does not in any way, as Mr Bulbring submitted, render the total sentence unjust.

We also need, in the light of the adjustments to the sentences, to deal with the period of disqualification from driving. We set aside the order for 38 months disqualification. We substitute the following. First, there will be a period of disqualification of 12 months under section 34 of the Road Traffic Offenders Act 1988, as a result of the conviction for the offence of aggravated vehicle taking. Secondly, there will then be an extended period of disqualification from driving of 11 months pursuant to section 35A of that Act and a further period of disqualification of 5 months pursuant to section 35B of that Act. The result is a period of disqualification from driving of 28 months that is 12 months discretionary disqualification and the 16 months extended period of disqualification. The judge also imposed a requirement that the appellant pass an extended driving test. We understand that the appellant is already subject to such an order and it is therefore inappropriate to make a further order in this case. We therefor quash that part of the order requiring the appellant to undertake an extended driving test.

In summary therefore, the sentence of 22 months' imprisonment for count 2 is unaltered but we allow the appeal to this extent. We quash the sentence of 5 months' imprisonment for driving whilst disqualified on count 3, and we substitute a sentence of 3 months' imprisonment to be served consecutively. We quash the sentence of 5 months' imprisonment imposed for count 1, we substitute a sentence of 3 months' imprisonment to be served consecutively to the sentence for count 3. We quash the sentence of 5 months’ imprisonment imposed on each of counts 5 and 6 and we substitute a sentence of 3 months' imprisonment on each to be served concurrently. That results in a total sentence for the driving offences of 28 months. We quash the sentence of 10 months' imprisonment for the failure to surrender to bail and substitute a sentence of 4 months to be served consecutively. That results in a total custody period of 32 months. We quash the disqualification for driving for 38 months and substitute a period of 12 months' discretionary disqualification and an extended period of disqualification of 16 months. We set aside the order requiring the appellant to undertake an extended driving test. We also correct the victim surcharge which the appellant should pay and which should stand in the amount of £190.