R v Yossa Maunders

The provisions of the Sexual Offences (Amendment) Act 1992 apply to this offence. Under those provisions where an allegation has been made that a sexual offence has been committed against a person, no matter relating to that person shall during that person's lifetime be included in any publication if it is likely to lead members of the public to identify that person as the victim of that offence. This prohibition applies unless waived or lifted in accordance with section 3 of the Act. The judgment has been anonymised accordingly.

This is an appeal against sentence with leave of the Single Judge.

On 26 July 2024 in the Crown Court at Cardiff the appellant pleaded guilty to fourteen sexual offences against two child victims. He had indicated his intention to plead guilty at the earliest opportunity.

We are grateful to Mr Donnison for his helpful and clear submissions.

On 22 May 2025 in the Crown Court at Cardiff, the appellant was sentenced to:

The judge also imposed concurrent sentences of:

In respect of V1, all of the offending would now amount to rape of a child under 13 and it fell within category 2A of the guideline. In respect of V2, counts 7, 8, 9 and 10 would now amount to rape of a child under 13 and fell within category 3A, while counts 11, 12, 13 and 14 would now be categorised as rape and fell within category 2B.

Each of those sentences took into account the one-third reduction to which the appellant was entitled by reason of his early guilty pleas.

We note in respect of the sentences of 2 months that the judge was constrained by the maximum sentence of 4 months that could have been imposed on the appellant had he been sentenced at the time of the commission of those offences in 1988, as he fell to be treated as 14 years old, there being no evidence as to his exact age and the earliest dates in the particulars being when he was 14.

The appellant was previously known as Andrew Yorath, changing his name by deed poll on 13 February 2020 to Yossa Maunders.

The victims were two brothers who knew the appellant from the local area where they grew up. V1 was sexually abused by the appellant when V1 was 8-12 years old between 7 September 1988 and 6 September 1993. The appellant was nearly 7 years older than him. The appellant first sexually abused V1 in a gully having lured him there on the pretence of getting him a bike from the dump. V1 was about 8 at the time. The appellant picked up a house brick and threatened to smash V1 over the head and threatened to harm his father and brothers. V1 was made to get on his knees and the appellant anally raped him. V1 was frightened and thought the appellant might kill him. The appellant told V1 not to tell anyone.

Thereafter rapes of the same kind were repeated many times. Sometimes V1's clothing was removed. The pattern was always the same. V1 would be out playing with friends. The appellant would isolate him from his friends and then take him off to secluded areas to abuse him. On occasions V1 would say "no" to the appellant but the appellant would just drag him along to the gully or other secluded areas. On one occasion V1 ran away but the appellant caught him by the throat. The appellant told the author of the pre-sentence report that he liked it when his victims tried to get away. V1 recalled being raped in the appellant's shed in the garden of his home which had a blacked-out window and furniture which seemed to be arranged for the purpose. The appellant ejaculated when anally raping V1 and when making V1 perform oral sex on him.

V2 was sexually abused by the appellant when he was 10-13 years old between 5 February 1988 and 4 February 1992, escaping the abuse only when he ran away from home and was taken into care.

The appellant was nearly 4½ years older than him. The appellant would isolate V2 from his friends when he was out playing, make him go on his knees and anally rape him. V2 was forced to perform oral sex on the appellant, incidents which he found even more distressing because he had to face the appellant. V2 described being terrified of the appellant. On one occasion V2 recalled being locked in a house with the appellant and another child. The appellant made V2 and the other child decide which one of them was to be abused.

The appellant had 33 previous convictions for 144 offences spanning from 7 January 1987 to 29 July 2021. These included 20 sexual offences.

The appellant was first convicted of sexual offences on 10 November 2006 at the age of 33, when he pleaded guilty to ten offences of indecent assault of a male person. Eight of the offences were committed against a child aged 5-9 years old between 1 January 1993 and 31 December 1997, when the appellant was aged 19-24. The remaining two offences were committed against another child aged 7-9 years old between 21 July 2002 and 31 December 2003, when the appellant was aged 29-30. An extended 10-year sentence was imposed comprising a custodial element of 4 years' imprisonment and an extended licence of 6 years.

On 29 July 2021 the appellant was convicted after trial of five offences of indecent assault of a male person (oral rapes) and five offences of buggery (anal rapes). Nine of the offences were committed between 14 October 1987 and 1 November 1988, when the appellant was 14 or 15, against a child of 8 or 9 years old. The tenth offence was committed between 2 November 1986 and 13 October 1987 against another child aged about 8 when the appellant was 13.

The sentence was the subject of an appeal to this Court as a consequence of counsel for the appellant in these proceedings noting that some of the sentences imposed had been beyond the powers of the court. In R v Maunders [2025] EWCA Crim 579, the Court quashed the extended sentence and substituted a determinate sentence of 7½ years on count 9, a concurrent sentence of the same length on count 10 and shorter sentences concurrent to count 9 for the other offences.

The appellant was serving the latter sentence when he was remanded for this case on 30 May 2024.

The appellant contends that the judge failed to have proper regard to totality in two ways. First, by failing to reflect totality adequately in respect of the two victims and secondly, by failing to reflect totality adequately in respect of the sentence that the appellant was then serving for similar offending committed at a similar time. The appellant submits that as a result the overall sentence was manifestly excessive.

The appellant acknowledges that the judge considered totality in respect of the offences against each individual victim but contends he did not do so adequately as between the victims.

As regards the earlier sentence, the appellant would have been eligible for automatic release at the halfway point on 15 March 2025. As he had already been remanded in custody for the current offences, that is those which are the subject of this appeal, he was not released at the halfway point. Although the judge made the sentence for the current offences run concurrently to the earlier sentence, and so from 15 March 2025, the appellant submits that it was effectively a consecutive sentence because he had already served half the previous sentence.

The appellant contends that the overall sentence for the 2021 conviction and the current offences equates to a sentence following trial for an adult of 34 years' custody plus 4 years' extended licence. This calculation is based on adding the custodial element of 12 years for the current offences and 6 years credit for pleas to the 16 years that the sentencing judge announced he would have imposed for the earlier offences if the appellant had been an adult.

The Totality Guideline states:

In our judgment, it was just and proportionate for the judge to take account of totality in respect of these fourteen grave sexual offences against two vulnerable children by making all of the offences against each victim concurrent. The judge was obviously right to impose consecutive sentences in respect of each victim. The appellant was an adult when he committed four of these offences, albeit only 18 and not far short of adulthood at 17 when he committed two others. He targeted children who were small of stature who he could overpower and control, taking enjoyment from their fear of him. We are wholly unpersuaded that reflecting all of the offending behaviour, which was committed over many years and has blighted the lives of his victims, necessitated any further reduction to reflect totality in respect of the two victims.

We turn then to address the impact of the earlier sentence.

Under the heading "Sentencing for offences committed prior to other offences for which an offender has been sentenced", the Totality Guideline states:

The Totality Guideline advises that:

Where the offender is serving a determinate sentence and the instant offences were committed after the offences sentenced earlier, the Totality Guideline advises:

In our judgment the judge did not fail adequately to reflect totality as between the 2021 conviction and the instant offences. First, the judge made the current sentences run concurrently to the 2021 sentences. We are not persuaded that that had no impact. If the appellant had been released on licence on 15 March 2025 he would have remained liable to being recalled to serve the remainder of his sentence for 3½ years. We note that following his release on licence after serving half the sentence imposed in 2006 for sexual offending the appellant was recalled to custody within 10 days for behaviours relating to him meeting up with a young male, believed to be under the age of 16, for sexual purposes and for testing positive for cannabis. He served the remainder of that sentence in custody. His previous convictions include eleven offences relating to police, courts, prisons, five of them being failure to surrender to bail. He has a very extensive record, including for example, 71 theft and kindred offences. In this context having the current sentences run from the halfway point of the 2021 sentence was a real benefit to the appellant, who as a consequence served the remaining 3½ years of his 2021 sentence (during which he would otherwise have been at risk of recall) concurrently with the sentences to the current offences.

Secondly, the offending for which the appellant was convicted in 2021, although of a similar nature, was against different victims. The offending against the second victim for which a 7½-year sentence was imposed was committed between 2 November 1986 and 13 October 1987, that is before any of the offences that are the subject of this appeal. The guidance indicates a consecutive sentence will generally be appropriate where that is the case.

The offending against the first victim was committed between 14 October 1987 and 1 November 1988. To a significant extent that too was prior to the instant offences, albeit there were 2 months and 9 months overlaps respectively with the periods of offending against V1 and V2.

Thirdly, the judge was mindful of the principle of totality as between the 2021 conviction and this case, but as he observed, the appellant chose “to try to lie [his] way out of that case and not come clean with the police about other offences that [he] had committed against other people”. The failure to come clean with the police when he had the opportunity to do so is expressly identified in the Totality Guideline as one to which the court was entitled to have regard. As the judge observed, the appellant could have cleaned the slate when he was dealt with in 2021 but he did not, and so responsibility for having to face another case from an overlapping period lies with him.

Finally, we cannot accept that the sentence imposed on this occasion is rendered unjust, disproportionate or excessive, still less manifestly so, by reference to the fact that the appellant had served 3½ years' detention (following trial) for ten other anal and oral rapes of two 8 or 9-year-old children.

Accordingly the appeal is dismissed.