R v Jack Williams

MR JUSTICE WALL: This is an appeal against sentence brought with the leave of the single judge. The appellant is 25 years old. He has a number of previous convictions, including convictions in 2018 for two offences of sending an offensive, indecent, obscene or menacing communication, inciting a male child under 16 to engage in penetrative sexual activity and making an indecent photograph of a child. A Sexual Harm Prevention Order for five years was made on conviction. That order prohibited a number of things, including the appellant having any contact with children aged under 16 or attempting to contact children under 16 over the internet.

In 2020 he was imprisoned for 12 months for four offences of making indecent images of children and breaching his Sexual Harm Prevention Order. He was then sentenced to a further 12 months' imprisonment for another breach of the order in 2022.

The sentence which is the subject matter of this appeal was imposed on 19 November 2024 in the Crown Court at Chester. He was sentenced to concurrent terms of 20 weeks' imprisonment for an offence of making indecent images of children and another of possessing indecent images of children (counts 1 and 2) and six months' imprisonment for two offences of attempted sexual communication with a child (counts 3 and 4). Those sentences were ordered to run concurrently with one another. He was further sentenced to a term of 27 months for two offences of breaching his Sexual Harm Prevention Order (counts 5 and 6). Those terms were ordered to be served consecutively to one another and consecutively to the six months imposed in respect of the attempted sexual communication offences. Finally, he was sentenced to a term of 18 months for a third breach of the Sexual Harm Prevention Order (count 7). That sentence was ordered to run concurrently with the other sentences. The total term imposed therefore was one of five years' imprisonment. A further Sexual Harm Prevention Order was also imposed.

The appellant had pleaded guilty to all of these offences at a time which it was agreed was properly marked by the reduction in his sentence of 25 per cent which was afforded to him by the judge. The total sentence after trial would have been one of six years and eight months.

On 18 April 2024 the appellant was arrested by the police at his address in Chester and two Smartphones seized from him. He was released under investigation whilst the Smartphones were analysed. He was arrested again on 9 September after one of the Smartphones had been found to contain seven Category C indecent images of children (counts 1 and 2). By this time it had also been discovered that the appellant had been communicating with three children on Tik Tok.

On 20 March 2024, the appellant, having already been told by the child he was communicating with that the child was aged 15, sent a message to the child which read: "Wanna see my willy?" This conduct was reflected in count 3 as a communication offence and count 5 as a breach of the Sexual Harm Prevention Order.

In an exchange with a different child on 23 April 2024 the appellant asked the child how old he was. The child told the appellant that he was 14. The appellant then asked the child if he would, "Call me little bro while bumming me and while we have anal". Count 4 reflected the communication offence and count 6 the breach of the order.

In a message exchanged with a third child, the appellant began by asking how old the recipient of the message was. The recipient child said that he was 13. The appellant's response was, "I'm talking about age not inches" before asking to be added as the child's friend on Instagram (count 7).

In interview the appellant denied responsibility for any of these offences, saying that he had recently purchased the telephone on Facebook from a man who lived in a retirement home and that he, the appellant, was not responsible for the images or for the messaging.

The pre-sentence report prepared for the hearing in the Crown Court concluded that there was a high risk of this appellant re-offending and causing harm to children in the future. The prison report ordered for this appeal reveals that the appellant has had a number of negative behaviour reports during his time in custody and has not, as yet, undertaken any courses in prison designed to reduce his future risk of offending.

The judge in passing sentence noted that the appellant had not been deterred from offending by the previous custodial sentences imposed on him. He found, based on the facts of this offence, the appellant's previous record and the assessment of the probation officer that the appellant met the criteria for being classed a dangerous offender. However, the judge decided that a determinate sentence and the restrictive effects of a further Sexual Harm Prevention Order would be sufficient to protect the public into the future without more.

The primary ground of appeal is that the sentence was manifestly excessive by virtue of the fact that the judge did not properly reflect the concept of totality in the sentence he passed. The further point taken is that the sentences for breaches of the Sexual Harm Prevention Order should have been concurrent to the sentences for the offences of attempted communication with a child where the breach of the order was to be found in the attempt to communicate with a child. Although advanced as a separate ground, this is just a manifestation of the appellant's primary argument that the judge could have restructured his sentence so that it better reflected totality.

The judge's categorisation of each offence individually within the relevant Sentencing Council definitive guideline is not challenged in the written or attractive oral submissions that were made to us today on behalf of the appellant.

The judge was right to find that this was repeated offending by a man who showed no sign of having learned his lesson through being incarcerated. An immediate custodial sentence in excess of the sentences of 12 months which the appellant had previously served for similar behaviour was justified.

Nevertheless, in our judgment the judge fell into error in the way in which he approached his task. Although the breach offences (counts 5 and 6) and the communication offences (counts 3 and 4) reflected different aspects of the appellant's criminality, in that the former reflected the potential harm to children and the latter the flagrant disobedience of a court order, they were in truth different aspects of the same criminal offending. In our judgment they should have attracted concurrent terms of imprisonment which together reflected the seriousness of the offending behaviour.

Given that the maximum sentence for the communication offences is two years, while that for the breach offences is five years, this would necessarily involve passing a longer sentence for the breach offences and a shorter concurrent term for the communication matters.

Further, although each of the breach offences in counts 5 and 6 individually could properly have attracted a sentence of 27 months after credit for guilty plea had been applied, the judge was wrong simply to add those two terms together without making further reduction to reflect totality.

We acknowledge that the judge passed a concurrent term for the less serious communication offence (count 7) but that alone was not sufficient to ensure that the total sentence passed was proportionate to the total criminality. There was no meeting with or attempt to meet the children who were the victims of these offences and the amount of online communication was limited.

We have concluded that the total length of sentence ought to have been three years six months. That is a sentence of four years and eight months less 25 per cent credit for guilty plea. This result could have been achieved by replacing the sentences passed with a series of sentences each of shorter length to be served consecutively to one another. However, we have concluded that it would be more appropriate in this case to pass concurrent sentences of similar length on the two most serious offences (counts 5 and 6). Those sentences will be designed to reflect the totality of the appellant's criminality. The sentences on the other matters will then remain as they were and ordered to run concurrently with the sentences on counts 5 and 6.

Therefore the sentences on counts 5 and 6 will be increased to three years and six months. We acknowledge that the notional sentence after trial on each of these offences is one of four years and eight months and that is outside of the offence range set by the Sentencing Council for offences of this nature. That is justified by the need to reflect in each of these sentences the entirety of the appellant's criminal conduct. As we have already indicated, the sentences on all other counts will remain as they were and all sentences are to be served concurrently with each other.

While therefore we have increased the sentences on counts 5 and 6, the overall effect of our decision is that the sentence is reduced from a total term of five years to a total term of three years and six months. To this extent this appeal is allowed.