R V Usman Rafiq

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

This application was brought 5 years and 5 weeks out of time. The facts are set out in the Court of Appeal note and are fully familiar to the applicant. It is not necessary to set them out in any detail here.

Put shortly, in November 2018, the applicant was convicted of two offences of conspiracy to supply Class A drugs. He was sentenced by HHJ Cartwright to 12 years’ imprisonment on each concurrent. The applicant sought leave to appeal against that custodial term but permission was refused and that application was not renewed. This application relates solely to an order disqualifying the applicant from driving.

At a hearing under the slip rule on 7 January 2019, it was pointed out to the judge that he had imposed a period of disqualification on the applicant of 3 years with an extension period that was not half the sentence of imprisonment he had imposed. He accepted that his approach was wrong. Accordingly, he reduced the initial period of disqualification from 3 years to 2 years and imposed an extended period of disqualification of 6 years.

The applicant applies for that period of disqualification to be adjusted or set aside. He has, he says, served the custodial element of his sentence, and is now prevented from obtaining employment in the construction industry in particular, and from supporting his family financially or otherwise by the continued existence of the disqualification.

We can readily understand and have some sympathy with the applicant’s present wish to be able to drive again. We have read a significant body of evidence that shows him to be making real efforts to turn his life around and to lead a constructive life. He says that his prospects of employment would be greatly enhanced if he could drive. We do not doubt that is true. We have read that he has obtained in particular a dumper truck driver’s qualification but he says that he cannot put that to good use if he cannot drive to get to work.

For us, the difficulty is that we cannot interfere with the sentence imposed by the judge unless it is manifestly excessive or wrong in principle judged by the position as it stood at the date when the disqualification was imposed. This disqualification was neither manifestly excessive nor wrong in principle. After the slip rule hearing, it was correct in principle, in accordance with the decision in a case called R v Needham [2016] 1 WLR 4049, which establishes that the judge was right to impose an extended period that was half of the length of a custodial sentence he had imposed. Nor was it even arguably manifestly excessive to impose a disqualification of 2 years plus that extended period given the seriousness of the applicant’s offending.

Since there is no basis upon which we could properly interfere with this sentence, we would not be minded to grant the necessary extension of time in any event. However, the only reason for the delay, which can be understood in human terms, in applying for permission to appeal appears to be that the applicant did not appreciate how the disqualification would affect him until after he had been released from custody. That could not be a proper reason for the extension of time that the applicant needs. We are therefore bound to refuse the application for an extension of time and the renewed application must be dismissed.