R v Sakeem Rhoje Gordon

In this case we are sentencing Sakeem Gordon for the offence of manslaughter in the circumstances which we described in the judgment which we handed down at the start of this hearing - [2025] EWCA Crim 1611 - and which are further described in the earlier judgment of this constitution in these proceedings dated 31 July 2025 - [2025] EWCA Crim 1045.

It is not necessary for the purpose of these sentencing remarks to set out the facts of the offence of manslaughter at great length; they are already apparent from those earlier judgments.

Sakeem Gordon was born on 19 February 2001. He was 20 years old on 22 January 2022, when he participated in the plot which included and resulted in the murder of Vishal Gohel. His part in that plot is reflected by his convictions for conspiracy to rob and manslaughter.

The concurrent sentences imposed by the trial judge for conspiracy to rob of 11 years and possession of a bladed article of 6 months stand. We are concerned only with the offence of manslaughter. The offence of conspiracy to rob was of course an essential part of the manslaughter. The offence of possession of the machete which occurred at the time of his arrest nearly three weeks after the death of Mr Gohel is a separate matter and one of some significance given the previous convictions of Sakeem Gordon.

The trial judge had to deal with a case which is closely comparable to Sakeem Gordon's case as an offence of manslaughter. That is because that was the offence for which Brandon Browne came to be sentenced. The trial judge who had heard the trial concluded that although Browne did not fall to be sentenced for murder, he knew the nature of the robbery, which was planned and which he took part in, and he knew that that robbery involved a high risk of really serious harm albeit that Browne did not intend to cause really serious harm. For those reasons the judge placed this offence, for the purposes of the unlawful act manslaughter Guideline, in category B. It involves high culpability. The starting point is 12 years, but this is clearly a significantly more serious offence than that. The range extends upwards to 16 years.

We consider that there is no significant difference between Sakeem Gordon and Brandon Browne so far as the offence is concerned. Browne is about six months older, but that is a very minor consideration; they were both young men. It is submitted that Browne had been more involved in the development of the plan to rob than Gordon. That no doubt is true, but there is clear evidence that five hours before anything happened at the flat where the murder took place, Sakeem Gordon had been signed up to take part. This was in no sense an impulsive act. We therefore do not consider that the difference in the duration of their involvement is a matter of importance. Sakeem Gordon knew what he was signing up to, knew that there was a high risk of really serious harm because of what was proposed and was there participating in the robbery at the time when the murder took place. Like the others he fled, leaving a man dead or dying, without taking any steps at all to secure assistance for him.

The significant difference between Browne and Gordon, in our judgment, lies in Gordon's substantially worse criminal record.

Browne has an offence of dangerous driving and other associated matters dating back to 2017.

Gordon's criminal record is a very worrying document. He acquired a couple of convictions in 2018 and 2019 to which it is unnecessary to refer, but on 20 February 2019 he was convicted of a robbery which had taken place about a month earlier. He received a youth rehabilitation order with various requirements attached to it. The purpose of that was to provide rehabilitation and assistance to a young man who had committed a serious offence of street robbery. That no doubt commended itself to the Youth Court as the right disposal because of the circumstances of Sakeem Gordon's early life and upbringing. These have been placed before us. They are sad and quite distressing. As a child he was effectively abandoned by his parents. His mother became involved later in his life at a point when he might perhaps just have been sorting himself out and may have been the cause of some disruption to that. However, for the purposes of sentencing, all of those factors had great weight and traction at the time when he was sentenced in February 2019 for that earlier offence of robbery. Their traction diminishes as offending continues.

Offending did continue. On 29 August 2019, for a further offence of robbery (committed just a few weeks after the youth rehabilitation order had been imposed), the Inner London Crown Court imposed a suspended term of detention in a young offenders' institution and some further requirements attached to that order which were designed to be conducive to achieving the same object as the earlier rehabilitation order.

Notwithstanding all that, on 15 June 2020 Sakeem Gordon was back before the Inner London Crown Court, this time charged with possessing an offensive weapon in a public place. That had taken place on 25 September 2019 (again just a few weeks after his latest appearance before the Crown Court). He was involved in a fight in the street with a number of other young men each of whom had a machete. That was an incident which was capable of causing terror to anyone passing by and very serious injury to anybody taking part. It was a very dangerous incident. It was committed during the operational period of the suspended sentence order we have referred to. It resulted in the end in a term of 18 months' detention in a young offenders' institution.

Not all that long after his release from that sentence, Sakeem Gordon found himself back in the criminal courts, this time pleading guilty in the South London Magistrates' Court to a further offence of possession of an offensive weapon in a public place. This is another machete. He was committed for sentence on 6 April 2021. He received a term of 6 months' detention in a young offenders' institution.

The offences of conspiracy to rob and manslaughter for which we are dealing with him were committed on 22 January 2022. That is less than a year after that appearance and that sentence. The fact that he was required to serve it, his second such sentence, did not in any sense deter him from taking part in the offence which resulted in the death of the victim. Moreover, it was, as we have said, three weeks later that he was arrested, and on that occasion also he had yet again in a public place a machete. Machetes are frightening and lethal weapons.

We have set out Sakeem Gordon's criminal record at length because it is, in our judgment, a very significant factor in determining the proper outcome in this case.

We also have before us a pre-sentence report prepared for the sentencing judge dated 26 October 2023 and an addendum bringing it up to date (at our request) dated 9 December 2025. The addendum expresses the view that Sakeem Gordon presents a high risk of serious harm to members of the public by reason of the commission by him of further specified offences.

The author of that addendum took into account a prison record which has been supplied to us (again at our request) dated 27 November 2025. That is, in our judgment, particularly significant because of the age of Sakeem Gordon at the time when he committed the offence which we are dealing with. What we were looking for was evidence (if such was the case) that he was maturing, as he moves towards his mid-twenties and thus poses less of a threat. Sadly, his conduct in prison has not been reassuring. There is a large number of adjudications which have involved apparently violent incidents albeit not incidents involving weapons. Mr Compton KC on his behalf has invited the court to treat the details of those allegations with some caution, and we do. It is not the details however which are of significance, it is the frequency of incidents of violence and aggression which mean that there is no reason to suppose that Sakeem Gordon is any more mature or calmer or less aggressive now than he was in 2022.

All of those matters at this stage in our remarks operate as aggravating factors in deciding the length of the custodial term.

We have already touched upon the matters of mitigation in setting out the history. The personal mitigation which is available to Sakeem Gordon arises out of his upbringing and background which is set out in the original pre-sentence report and referred to also in the addendum. We have indicated how that should be dealt with now in setting out the history.

The overall balance of aggravating and mitigating factors, in our judgment, requires a significant increase in the starting point to the top of the relevant category range. That is a term of 16 years. That is longer than the 15 years which was imposed on Browne, but the reason for that is Sakeem Gordon's significantly worse criminal offending.

We then have to move to considering the question of dangerousness. Sakeem Gordon has been convicted of a schedule 18 offence. We have each of us considered all of the material which is available, as we are required to do, and have concluded that Sakeem Gordon is a ‘dangerous offender’ because he does pose the risk of serious harm to the public as set out in the addendum pre-sentence report. Again we trust that in setting out the relevant history we have identified the factors which drive us towards that conclusion.

Having determined that he is a ‘dangerous offender’, the next issue which we have to consider is whether the offence of manslaughter associated with other offences as it is, is so serious that a life sentence is justified. If so, we must impose one. We have concluded that that is not the case; that Sakeem Gordon is not in a situation where we must impose a discretionary life sentence on him. A principal factor in our reaching that conclusion is his age and relative immaturity.

We have however concluded that the appropriate way of disposing of this case in order to ensure public safety given the risk which he presents is to impose a sentence in respect of the manslaughter offence which is a total term as an extended determinate sentence of 20 years, with a custodial term of 16 years.