R v Paula Marie Usherwood & Ors

Paula Usherwood is now 41, Carla McGuire is now 54 and Leonard Ward is now 44 years old. Each of them seeks leave to appeal against sentence following refusal by the single judge. Each of them was convicted of murder, following a lengthy trial, those verdicts being returned on 12 June 2023. The trial judge was Turner J.

The sentencing exercise following those convictions and convictions of other co-defendants in the trial took place on 21 and 22 June 2023. Each of these applicants was inevitably sentenced to life imprisonment and the task of the judge was to specify the minimum term under section 322 of the Sentencing Act 2020. In each case the minimum term which was specified by the judge had deducted from it the days which had been spent on remand awaiting trial. The result was that the minimum term in Usherwood's case was fixed at 30 years' imprisonment less 575 days, in McGuire's case, the minimum term was 20 years' imprisonment less 574 days and in the case of Ward, the minimum term was 32 years less 569 days.

The judge was required to pass sentence on a number of other people too. It is not necessary for the purpose of this judgment to identify the terms which were assessed in those cases but it is appropriate to observe that the judge was careful to make distinctions between the different defendants that he had to deal with, according to the findings of fact that he made about the nature of their involvement in this murder.

The applications before us are renewed, as we have said. We have heard oral submissions on behalf of Usherwood from Mr Peter Joyce KC. We have heard oral submissions on behalf of McGuire from Mr Gary Bell KC. They both appearpro bono in conducting these applications, and the Court is extremely grateful to them for their submissions and for their appearance in those circumstances. It is not widely enough known that the Bar commonly appears without fee in this Court in order to argue applications for leave to appeal against sentence following refusal on the papers and that is a valuable public service which should be acknowledged.

Ward is not represented before us but we do have the documents which were prepared on his behalf by his legal team and are therefore familiar with the points which may be made in his favour and we will deal with those in due course.

It is necessary to set out the facts of the case in a little detail. It was a complex trial in which a large number of different defendants each denied their guilt of murder. It was the task of the jury to assess each case with care and to return verdicts.

The prosecution case, which the jury accepted, was that this murder arose out of a commercial turf war between rival drug-dealing syndicates in Nottingham. That turf war was prosecuted by incidents of violence which culminated, for present purposes, in the stabbing to death of Michael Anton O'Connor on 10 November 2021 outside 121 Wilfred Crescent West, in The Meadows area of Nottingham. The prosecution alleged that he was killed because he walked into a trap which had been set for another man altogether named McKenzie. McKenzie was in the process of establishing a drug-dealing syndicate in the area where this killing occurred (The Meadows area of Nottingham). That territory for drug-dealing purposes was already occupied by another syndicate. It was alleged that Ward was a significant controlling member of that syndicate and that Usherwood was closely involved in it. McGuire's involvement was said to be less deep but nevertheless involved the provision of significant assistance to the plan which resulted in Mr O' Connor's death.

In very short summary, the position was that at the end of October 2021 the syndicate led by Ward was becoming increasingly concerned by the intrusive and violent conduct of McKenzie's syndicate which was in the process of taking its business. That syndicate decided to respond to that by organising an attack on McKenzie. An agreement was reached that he would go to the area around No 121, where he would be trapped and then attacked by a gang who had come down from Manchester for that purpose. None of these applicants was part of the Manchester squad. The judge dealt with the case on the basis that it may not have been intended that McKenzie would be killed but it was certainly the case that he would suffer really serious injury. In the event, he was stabbed to the heart by one of the Manchester team called "Mingoes" and died at the scene.

Usherwood had been involved on the day of the attack, with another, in meeting McKenzie at Poet's Corner. The allegation was that that meeting was to make arrangements for him to attend a further meeting later that night, at which he would be ambushed and attacked by the Manchester team which would either kill him or cause him, at the least, really serious harm.

Carla McGuire had installed CCTV cameras at No 121 on 14 October 2021, just a couple of weeks before this happened. That CCTV footage contained significant evidence showing the arrival of the hit team from Manchester and showing that team leaving the property on two occasions, which were said to be reconnaissance expeditions. On the second of those expeditions they used a set of untraceable bicycles and it was said that McGuire and Usherwood had both been involved in obtaining those.

When the deceased arrived the CCTV was turned off by McGuire, so that it would not capture the attack. This was an important part of the case against her because the prosecution invited the jury to draw the inference that she must have known that there was going to be an attack. The CCTV was turned on again at a time when it captured some members of the Nottingham syndicate which had organised this attack attempting to administer CPR to the dead or dying O'Connor. No doubt it was thought that that footage might be helpful in strong contrast to the footage which McGuire had been careful to ensure would never come into existence of the attack itself. The manipulation of the CCTV cameras therefore at and around the time of the attack indicated a fairly detailed knowledge by her of what was to happen and of what had happened.

The attack itself occurred when O'Connor arrived at the scene of the meeting. Usherwood was in a vehicle. She drove out of a road nearby sounding the vehicle's horn in order to attract the hit team. McGuire and others came out of No 121 at that point, and the crowd thereby formed prevented Mr O' Connor from escaping. Usherwood continued to manoeuvre her car around the area to obstruct his escape. The hit team then appeared. At this point O'Connor was trapped behind a car and was stabbed by Mingoes, causing his death. Afterwards steps were taken to get the Manchester team safely away and to remove and destroy clothing which had been worn. At this stage McGuire's involvement was limited to dealing with the CCTV in the way that we've have described. Usherwood though was actively involved in dealing with the Manchester team's escape and dealing with clothing and the destruction of a vehicle which had been used. Soon afterwards McKenzie and his associates made an attempt on Usherwood's life but the handgun which they had jammed. That, in a nutshell, is a description by way of summary of the facts giving rise to these convictions for murder.

The judge had, when determining sentence, a thorough knowledge, far more extensive than our summary would suggest, of the facts of the case having presided over this very long case. He also had victim personal statements about the consequences of the death of O'Connor for those who loved him. So far as antecedents are concerned, Usherwood had eight convictions, most recently in 2008, including a conviction in December 2007 for supplying Class C drugs for which he had received a 12-month prison sentence. McGuire had only three previous convictions, none of which was of direct relevance and she had not previously been sent to prison. Ward had 20 convictions between 2000 and 2017, including a conviction in May 2012, for possession with intent to supply Class B drugs and possession of a firearm, for which he had been sent to prison for 5 years. His last conviction was in October 2017 for wounding, for which he received a custodial sentence of 20 months. The judge did not have pre-sentence reports, none being necessary in the circumstances of this case either then or now.

In his sentencing remarks the judge found that the attack was deliberately planned and intended not only as a show of force but also a plan involving the actual use of force which would fall short of an intention to kill. He said he was not sure that there was an intention to kill given the proximity of this killing to No 121, which was an address occupied by McGuire and other members of the relevant syndicate. The dealing by McGuire of the CCTV occurred at the last minute and the arrangements for the retreat were also somewhat disorganised.

So far as Ward was concerned, the judge found that he was a leading figure in the syndicate which was attempting to defend its turf and that he had played a leading role in instigating the plan. He was sentenced on the basis that he knew that the plan involved infliction of serious violence on, as was intended McKenzie but as it happened O'Connor, and that he was closely involved in monitoring events throughout the relevant day. The judge had to consider, of course, Schedule 21 of the Sentencing Act 2020 and to decide on the appropriate starting point. He concluded in the circumstances of this case that this was an offence of murder for gain attracting the 30-year starting point. There were in the case of Ward aggravating features involving his leading role and careful planning. He also had significant previous convictions and knew that the attackers from Manchester would be armed.

The judge balanced those aggravating features against such mitigating features as there were and concluded that the minimum term should be higher than the starting point and fixed it at 32 years.

In the case of McGuire, the judge found that she knew that her house (No 121) was being used as the operational base of the drug dealing syndicate. She was aware that that business was under threat because of the new rival on the block (McKenzie), so she knew why the hit team were at her property on the day of the murder. The judge found that she shared in the common intention in relation to the attack. She had dealt with the CCTV in the way that we have described at the request of her son, who was another member of this syndicate, and then had attempted to cover it up.

The judge concluded that in her case this was not a murder for gain; she had been motivated by a desire to protect her own safety and also out of misguided loyalty to her family. He was satisfied that she knew that weapons would be used and therefore the appropriate starting point from Schedule 21 was 25 years. The judge considered the aggravating features, namely the level of planning that was involved and weighed against those the mitigating features. The mitigation was primarily to be derived from her lesser involvement in the plan than others and her motivation which was different from that of others. That motivation of course had already operated to reduce the starting point in her case from 30 years to 25 years and therefore had limited further traction at that stage. The judge balancing mitigation against aggravating features made a downward adjustment from the starting point in her case to 20 years.

In the case of Usherwood, the judge found that she was closely affiliated with Ward’s syndicate operating in The Meadows area of Nottingham. Mr Joyce on her behalf has described her behaviour during the trial as abrasive, difficult and uncontrolled. The judge concluded that she was a person who was aggressively assertive. Mr Joyce has submitted that given that irrational and uncontrolled behaviour, she would be the last person that any sensible drug-dealing syndicate would trust with any significant part in its activities or any knowledge of them. The judge thought, and found, that actually her aggressive assertiveness had its uses from the point of view of a syndicate which was under attack and having to defend its turf in a power struggle. The judge found that she had been involved in the meeting with McKenzie which we have described, and that she had been involved in driving the hit team around and in the attack itself using her car in the way that we have described. In those circumstances, the judge found that in her case this was involvement in a plot which culminated in murder and that that plot was designed to secure the gain for her syndicate and that it was therefore in her case a murder for gain attracting the starting point of 30 years. In her case the judge weighted the mitigating features against the aggravating features and found that they cancelled each other out which is why the minimum term was the same as the starting point.

The grounds of appeal in the same order in which we have identified the sentences are as follows. Ward submits that:

In the case of Carla McGuire, her grounds are:

The judge erred in selecting a starting point of 25 years which was too high in the circumstances.

That the judge failed to make appropriate deductions for the applicant's mitigation, namely her limited role, her lack of intension to kill and the fact that she was acting out of misguided loyalty to her son, her age and her lack of previous convictions.

In the case of Usherwood, her grounds of appeal are:

That the judge wrongly identified the starting point for the minimum term. It is submitted in the grounds and in the advice, and orally before us by Mr Peter Joyce, that the correct starting point was 25 years pursuant to Schedule 21.

The judge failed to properly take into account the applicant's mitigation in that she was a mother of three children and had not offended since 2007.

In the applicant's case, her involvement was not financially motivated, it was the result of misplaced loyalty. That third ground involves a submission that the judge ought to have treated Usherwood in that respect in the same way as he treated McGuire and that his factual distinction between them was therefore one which was not properly open to him.

The single judge, having considered the matter on the papers, refused leave in each of these cases. He gave reasons which are full enough clearly to indicate why he felt that each of these applications was unarguable. He said this in the case of Leonard Ward:

We agree with the single judge and with the trial judge in that analysis. In our judgment, it is simply unarguable that a minimum term of 32 years in the case of Leonard Ward is too long. It would, in our judgment, have been open to the judge, had he thought it appropriate to do so, to impose a minimum term in the case of Leonard Ward which reflected a significantly greater increase in the appropriate starting point of 30 years than he in fact applied. In those circumstances, Leonard Ward's application for leave to appeal against sentence is refused.

In the case of Carla McGuire the single judge said this:

Mr Bell has submitted that the minimum term of 20 years, given those findings which we have set out above and which the single judge referred to, as to the level of involvement of Carla McGuire and her motivation, was simply too long. We disagree. This was lesser involvement in an extremely serious killing which was done in furtherance of offending, namely widespread supply of Class A controlled drugs, which was itself extremely serious. The use of lethal violence in pursuit of serious crime is an extremely serious offence. In our judgment, the judge's analysis of McGuire's case did full justice to the points which can properly be made on her behalf, as can be shown by the fact that her minimum term was only two-thirds that imposed upon her more deeply involved co-accused, Usherwood, to whose case we now turn.

In the case of Usherwood the single judge said this:

Notwithstanding Mr Joyce's persuasive submissions, we agree with the single judge. This applicant was deeply involved in the planning and execution of this killing. She was also deeply involved in the underlying business, the protection of which was the purpose of the killing. She had become a serious organised violent criminal who perpetrated a killing. Having been convicted of murder for gain, she cannot complain that the appropriate minimum term in her case was the starting point prescribed by the statute for such cases.

For those reasons, each of these three applications is refused. Mr Bell and Mr Joyce, we repeat our thanks to both of you for your help.