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IN THE COURT OF APPEAL CRIMINAL DIVISION ON APPEAL FROM THE CROWN COURT AT WOOD GREEN (HHJ LUCAS) [T20197501] CASE NO: 202401721/A2 Neutral Citation Number: [2025] EWCA Crim 828 |
Royal Courts of Justice
Strand
London
WC2A 2LL
Before:
LORD JUSTICE STUART-SMITH
MR JUSTICE CHOUDHURY
HIS HONOUR JUDGE ST JOHN-STEVENS
(Sitting as a Judge of the CACD)
REX
V
ANOP SINGH
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_________
NON-COUNSEL APPLICATION
JUDGMENT
Approved
MR JUSTICE CHOUDHURY:
On 11 May 2022 in Wood Green Crown Court, before HHJ Lucas KC, the applicant was convicted of causing death by dangerous driving (count 1) and dangerous driving (count 2), having earlier been convicted of doing an act tending and intended to pervert the course of justice (count 3).
On 13 May 2022, before the same judge, the applicant (then aged 31) was sentenced to a total of 14 years’ imprisonment made up as follows: 12 years for count 1; 30 months concurrent on count 2; and 2-years consecutive on count 3. The applicant was also disqualified for 8 years with an extension period of 6 years and until an extended test was passed. He now seeks to renew his application for leave to appeal, leave having been refused by the single judge.
The Facts
At approximately 1.30 on 12 August 2017, John Heneghan (aged 72) was crossing the High Road in Tottenham close to Tottenham South Overground Station, when a Volkswagen Golf motor vehicle, driven by the applicant, struck him. The force of the impact propelled Mr Heneghan into the air. He landed on the windscreen and proceeded to roll off the bonnet, landing on the road surface some distance ahead of the Golf. Initially the Golf came to a stop but within a matter of seconds and in order to make its getaway the vehicle was deliberately driven straight over Mr Heneghan’s body. Mr Heneghan sustained fatal injuries and was pronounced dead at the scene.
The applicant then drove off. He had a passenger in the front seat. After a short distance the passenger, Dwayne Williams, got out and went back to the scene. However, Mr Williams later refused to identify the driver. The applicant managed to drive home despite the extensive damage to his vehicle and an injury sustained to his face.
Having taken some time to get his story straight and conceal the whereabouts of clothing he was wearing that night, shortly after 7.30 am the applicant, together with his sister, dialled 999 to advise police that his vehicle had been involved in some kind of car crash or accident. He claimed he did not know what had happened, but he had not been driving at the time. He said he had been out and had a few drinks and did not know who was driving and woke up later on the back seat. Officers attended the applicant’s home address in E5 in London. The applicant repeated that he did not know what had happened, but he had not been driving at the time. The officers’ inquiries revealed the vehicle had been involved in a fatal accident and therefore the applicant was arrested. The applicant continued to lie about the clothing he had been wearing the night before and tried to conceal his mobile phone when the police attended his home.
The forensic collision investigator concluded that when the Golf struck Mr Heneghan, it was travelling at between 47 mph and 76 mph on a road subject to a 30-mph speed limit. The force of the impact caused Mr Heneghan to penetrate the windscreen towards the driver’s side crumpling the leading edge of the Golf’s roof and bending the steering wheel. Mr Heneghan was thrown and slid a distance of between 51 and 66m after the collision with the Golf. If the Golf had been travelling at 30 mph, Mr Heneghan would have enough time to cross onto the north side of the road or provide the driver with ample opportunity to react and slow down or even stop. Had the Golf been travelling at 30 mph a collision would have been prevented.
CCTV footage showed the right cornering lamp of the Golf was illuminated. This suggested that the driver had turned the steering wheel towards where John Heneghan lay either deliberately or otherwise. In addition, the southbound traffic lane was sufficiently wide for the Golf to have passed by Mr Heneghan without making any further contact with him.
Antecedents
The applicant had 11 convictions for 13 offences between 2006 and 2020. These included driving a motor vehicle with excess alcohol, for which he received a 12-month community order in 2015 and disqualified for 2 years (later reduced to 6 months) and driving a motor vehicle with the proportion of specified controlled drug above the specified limit for which he was fined and disqualified from driving for 3 years on 27 November 2020. That offence was committed shortly after the current matter. He also had convictions for possession of controlled drugs. There was no pre-sentence report, and the single judge did not direct one to be produced. We do not consider that a pre-sentence report is now necessary.
Sentence
The applicant was sentenced in accordance with the Definitive Guidelines still in force at the time. In detailed and comprehensive sentencing remarks, the judge, having set out the facts and considered the victim personal statements, considered the seriousness of the offence. The judge stated that he would aggregate the seriousness of the offence in count 1 by the fact of the offending in count 2. It was not disputed that the driving in this case was dangerous, and the judge was satisfied that it fell into level 1. That carried a starting point of 8 years and a category range of 7 to 14 years. This categorisation was because there had been, on the applicant’s part, driving that involved a deliberate decision to ignore the rules of the road and a deliberate disregard for the very great danger that the manner of his driving caused to other road users. The judge then noted the numerous aggravating factors including the antecedents, which included driving under the influence, the fact that the applicant was not insured at the time, his consumption of alcohol and drugs prior to the incident, the failure to provides assistance to Mr Heneghan and his attempt to blame others. Taking all of these matters together the judge considered that the offence fell at the very highest end of the scale. He therefore fixed upon a sentence of 12 years on count 1. The judge found there were no mitigating factors that reduced that sentence. He considered that the delay in bringing the trial to conclusion was entirely of the applicant’s own making and that his persistent lies meant the prosecution had to go great lengths to disprove his changing accounts.
As to count, 2, the judge sentenced the applicant to 30 months concurrent and stated that he had already taken this into account on count 1. As to count 3, the judge said that had he been sentencing for that offence alone the sentence would have been 4 years, and having regard to totality, the sentence on count 3 would be 2 years to run consecutively. The total sentence was therefore one of 14 years’ imprisonment plus the disqualification that has already been mentioned.
The grounds of appeal
The applicant drafted his own grounds of appeal. His appeal was out of time, and he sought an extension of time. He contends that the sentence was manifestly excessive for the following reasons:
It was wrong to place the offence into the highest category as it was a terrible accident and was not intentional.
The applicant was refused any mitigation, and the judge found he had shown no remorse, but the applicant says this was not true. He says he was very remorseful and concerned for the victim and his family.
The judge failed to take into account that the victim was heavily intoxicated as shown by the postmortem report. The victim stepped off the bus and into the road out of nowhere and that the bus stop was shadowed by a bridge and the blur caused by headlights of oncoming vehicles.
The judge failed to take into account the unusual number of bereavements suffered by the applicant whilst growing up and that the applicant was a primary carer for his unwell mother.
As to these grounds and the application for an extension of time the single judge said as follows:
“Decision:
Applications for an extension of time and for leave to appeal against sentence on Counts 1 and 3 refused.
Count 2 referred to the Full Court for the limited reasons identified by the Prosecution and set out at [18] - [19] below.
Reasons:
I have considered the papers in your case and your grounds of appeal against sentence.
Extension of time in relation to Count 1
You seek a lengthy extension of time in which to appeal the sentence of 12 years’ imprisonment imposed on Count 1 (dangerous driving). The extension you seek is 1 year and 10 months, when the time limit for appealing is 28 days. Your reasons for the delay relate primarily to your mental health and that of your mother.
You were represented by counsel during your trial and sentencing and they will have advised you of the strict time limit for appealing. Information about how to appeal to this Court is widely available.
I accept that you may have found the impact of imprisonment stressful. However, I have seen no medical evidence to support the suggestion that you had a ‘complete mental breakdown’ as you describe. There is nothing, for example, to indicate that you have received mental health treatment as an in- patient while in custody.
It is clear that your mother has poor mental health, but this appears to be a long-standing issue. It is far from clear that it was your sentence of imprisonment that led to her taking an overdose: this appears to have happened in 2023, when you were sentenced in May 2022. I note that the letter from her GP refers to one such incident, not the multiple incidents you refer to. I appreciate that you will have been concerned about your mother’s mental health while you are in prison, but she has support from other family members, her GP and religious community at the Gurdwara.
For these reasons I do not consider your reasons for seeking such a long extension of time to be persuasive. In any event there would be no purpose in extending time because I do not consider that your grounds of appeal are reasonably arguable, for the reasons set out below.
Leave to appeal in relation to Count 1
You assert that the Judge wrongly categorised the offence of dangerous driving under Count 1 as within Level 1 within the Sentencing Council guideline. You rightly identify that Level 1 should be reserved for the most serious offences, encompassing driving with a deliberate decision to ignore or flagrant disregard for the rules of the road; and an apparent disregard for the dangers caused to others.
However, that was an entirely justified categorisation of your conduct. You were driving at a grossly excessive speed, and you deliberately drove over the victim. There were a significant number of factors that aggravated your offending further. The Judge was also correct to treat the offending under Count 2 (dangerous driving) as aggravating that under Count 1 (causing death by dangerous driving). The nature of your offending and the various aggravating factors were set out in detail by the Judge when sentencing you and were summarised at pages 10G-12D of the transcribed Sentencing Remarks. They are also set out in some detail in the Respondent’s Notice.
You were represented by experienced counsel at the time of sentencing. Counsel provided the judge with detailed written and oral mitigation on your behalf. The Judge was made aware of the bereavements you had suffered and your mothers’ poor mental health... Moreover...the Judge had heard you give evidence on three occasions and so was well aware of the dynamics of your family.
Had there been evidence that you were the primary carer for your mother at the time of sentencing this would have been raised. The prosecution indicate that it was not. Indeed, I note that none of the character references from your sisters, cousin and family friends, suggested that you were the primary carer for your mother. The letters from your mother’s GP and Gurdwara from May and August 2024 suggesting that you were her primary carer before going into prison constitute fresh evidence which is not generally admissible on appeal. You have provided no reasons why this evidence was not placed before the Judge sentencing you, when it appears that it could have been.
You contend that the offence was a terrible accident and not committed intentionally. That was not consistent with the conclusion of the jury who found you guilty, albeit that the Judge may well have accepted your counsel’s submission that the offence was not intentional in the sense of being pre-planned...
As explained at [42] of the Respondent’s Notice, there was never any suggestion at trial that the victim was intoxicated.
Your counsel did not identify remorse as a mitigating factor and the Judge was entitled to conclude that you did not show any, albeit that the Judge was at pains to emphasise that the lack of remorse was not being used as an aggravating factor...
For these reasons the Judge was fully justified in finding that your mitigation should not reduce the original 12-year sentence that had been identified.
For all these reasons I refuse to extend time to appeal the sentence imposed on Count 1 and refuse leave to do so.
Count 3
It does not appear that you seek to appeal the consecutive sentence of 2 years imprisonment imposed on Count 3 (perverting the course of justice).
However, for the avoidance of doubt I consider that this sentence was entirely appropriate for the reasons summarised...in the Respondent’s Notice and 12E-13E of the Sentencing Remarks.
Accordingly, to the extent that you seek to appeal this sentence, I refuse to extend time for the same reasons as are given above in relation to Count 1 and refuse leave.”
We agree entirely with the single judge’s conclusions that the grounds of appeal in respect of the sentences on counts 1 and 3 are not reasonably arguable. This was driving that plainly fell into level 1 of the guidelines, and the seriousness was elevated by the presence of numerous aggravating features, not least the poor history of driving-related convictions and being under the influence of drugs and alcohol at the time.
The protestations of remorse ring hollow given the judge’s assessment of the applicant’s reaction and the lack of empathy for the family of the victim over the course of four trials. The absence of remorse or empathy is also highlighted by the applicant’s attempt, even on this renewal application, to cast blame for the collision on the victim.
The single judge did refer one matter to the Full Court, and that is the sentence of 30 months for count 2. The maximum sentence for dangerous driving is 24 months and the sentence of 30 months is therefore unlawful. We therefore extend time and grant leave in respect of count 2 only. Leave and extension of time is refused in respect of counts 1 and 3. We quash the sentence of 30 months on count 2 and replace it with one of 24 months.
The Registrar also drew to our attention that the period of disqualification imposed in respect of count 1 may have been erroneousness given that it had not taken into account the consecutive sentence under count 3. The judge did extend the disqualification period by 6 years to take account of the custodial sentence of 12 years on count 1. However, the judge was also required to consider a further uplift on the disqualification period on account of the fact that sentence of 2 years on count 3 was consecutive. However, any such increase at this stage would be contrary to the prohibition on dealing with an offender more severely than he was dealt with below. Accordingly, we do not make any adjustments to the disqualification period.
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