R v Joshua Rennie-Owosu

This is an appeal against sentence brought by leave of the single judge.

The appellant is now 21 years old (born on 14 December 2004.) On 20 March 2026 in the Crown Court at Maidstone the appellant was sentenced by Mr Recorder Passmore KC to a total of 5 years' custody for offences involving the supply of class A drugs.

There were two separate indictments. On the first, the appellant was charged with being concerned in the supply of cocaine (Count 1) and diamorphine (Count 2). He pleaded guilty to those offences on 3 July 2025. The sentence on each was 20 months’ custody concurrent.

On the second indictment, the appellant was charged with being concerned in the supply of cocaine (Count 1) and diamorphine (Count 2), and with possession with intent to supply cocaine (Count 3) and diamorphine (Count 4). On Count 5 he was charged with possessing criminal property: £4,755 in cash recovered from his home address, the proceeds of drug dealing. On Counts 1 to 4 there were concurrent sentences of 40 months' custody and on Count 5 no separate penalty.

The offences on the second indictment were committed on bail and indeed after his appearance in the Crown Court and guilty pleas to the offences in Count 1. The sentences on the second indictment were therefore made consecutive to the first, making a total of 5 years.

The issue in the appeal is whether the judge made sufficient allowance for the principle of totality, particularly having regard to the appellant's young age and previous good character.

We are grateful to Mr Cogan for his written and oral submissions and grateful to him and prosecuting counsel, Ms Lily Hines, for agreeing a note of the judge's sentencing remarks at the request of the Registrar. This was necessary because regrettably there was a fault with the recording equipment in the Crown Court which means that we have no transcript of the proceedings and in particular of the judge's sentencing remarks.

The offences in the first indictment of being concerned in supplying cocaine and diamorphine spanned the period 5 August to 6 September 2023. The appellant was then 18 years old. The offences came to light as the result of police observations on drug dealing in the Luton Arches area of Medway. On 5 September 2023, two suspected drug users were seen exchanging cash with a young man called Poku-Ware. He was detained by the police and found to be in possession of a quantity of crack cocaine and heroin and £175 in cash.

He was also in possession of a mobile phone with a number ending 3183. He said he had been forced to sell the drugs. A review of his phone revealed a great deal of evidence of his involvement in the supply of crack cocaine and heroin. Shortly after his phone was seized, messages started to come through from contacts saved as "JSAV" and" Js27". This was believed to be the same person “upstream”, so to speak, in the supply chain who was directing Poku-Ware. JSAV was repeatedly calling Poku-Ware after his arrest via Snapchat.

The police were able to establish that the mobile number used by JSAV was the appellant's phone. The appellant had provided that phone number to the police previously in February 2022 when he had been stopped and searched by police in London and found to be in possession of cannabis.

The other saved contact on the phone, Js27, was also traced to the appellant, who was living in Croydon at the time. It was established that the phone recovered from Poku-Ware, number 3183, was used in the "Jordan" drugs line, which regularly used cell sites in the Croydon area and travelled between there and Medway towns. Plainly it was a county lines operation. All the contact with 3138 was with known drug users. The contact between Poku-Ware and the appellant was what would be expected of someone directing a street runner, with short voice calls and text messages. It was the appellant directing Poku-Ware, whose home address was in Chatham in the Medway towns. Poku-Ware was the appellant's third top contact and the appellant was Poku-Ware's second top contact during the period of the offences on the first indictment.

The appellant was arrested and interviewed on 26 September 2023. He gave a "no comment" interview. His first appearance in the magistrates' court was on 26 September, the same day. He was sent for trial to the Crown Court, in custody He was granted bail by the Crown Court on 24 October 2023, having spent 4 weeks in custody. There was an application to dismiss the charges on the first indictment which was not dealt with until the end of February 2024. On the refusal of the application to dismiss, the appellant was arraigned and entered not guilty pleas.

A trial date of 29 September 2025 was set, a very long time ahead. But on 3 July 2025, some three months before trial, the appellant was rearraigned and pleaded guilty to both counts. A pre-sentence report was ordered as it was anticipated that the appellant would be sentenced before the end of September 2025. The appellant remained on bail subject to a qualifying curfew and other conditions.

The offences in the second indictment spanned the period 5 August to 17 September 2025. It follows, as we have already indicated, that those offences were committed not only whilst he was on bail but very shortly after he had entered his guilty pleas to the first indictment and was awaiting sentence.

The police were investigating the "Audi" drugs line, which used a phone number ending in 4079 in the Borough of Croydon. On 17 September 2025 the police searched the appellant's home address in Croydon. Wraps of crack cocaine and heroin were recovered, mobile phones, and £4,755 in cash. There were 64 wraps of crack cocaine with a street value of £625 and a single knotted plastic bag containing diamorphine which potentially could be cut to make 77 wraps with a street value of £770. The total street value of the class A drugs recovered was therefore £1,395. The messages on the phones were marketing messages, offering crack cocaine and heroin for sale using the brand name "Audi".

The appellant was arrested and interviewed. He gave a "no comment" interview save to state that he understood what a broadcast text message was.

In respect of the second indictment, the appellant entered guilty pleas to all five counts at a hearing on 12 December 2025, several months before the trial date which had been set for those offences, which would have been May 2026.

The appellant was 20 years old throughout the period of offending in the second indictment. His guilty pleas were entered two days before his 21st birthday, which means that any custodial sentence imposed had to take the form of detention in a young offender institution rather than imprisonment. It is not entirely clear whether that had been realised when he was sentenced.

The appellant had only one previous conviction. In October 2022, aged still 17, he pleaded guilty to possessing an offensive weapon and possession of cannabis, in respect of which a referral order was made for 8 months.

There was a pre-sentence report. The appellant told the probation officer that he committed the offences because he had got involved with the wrong crowd. He said he got into supplying drugs because he needed to pay for damage caused to a moped he had been riding which was wrecked. He went along with the suggestion that as a way of getting money to fix the moped he should supply drugs. He didn't "feel great" about it; he was not scared but the person who persuaded him "had a reputation".

It is plain from the pre-sentence report, and from the impressive letter written by the appellant's mother, that the appellant did well at school, leaving with five GCSEs. He had won a scholarship to a private secondary school but his mother could not afford the match funding required so instead he had attended a mainstream school where he became more vulnerable to negative peer pressure both at school and in the wider community. When he was only 13, he was groomed and exploited by older males, which had been accepted by the police as the correct position based on police intelligence. Despite those setbacks he had gone on to achieve these examination results. But for the last couple of years had been unemployed and living on benefits.

The pre-sentence report addressed the question of the appellant's maturity. The view of the author of the report was that the appellant may have had difficulty in making responsible decisions and was susceptible to peer influence; the level of his maturity may have played a role in his offending. The recommendation in the report, if custody could be avoided, was for a community order with a rehabilitation activity requirement and an unpaid work requirement.

There was also a letter from the appellant's girlfriend which emphasised that despite his offending there was a very different and positive side to his character.

In their sentencing note the prosecution submitted to the judge that in respect of the second set of offences the appellant had played a 'significant role' for the purposes of the relevant Sentencing Council guideline. There was category 3 harm because it was selling directly to users. This indicated a starting point of 4½ years' custody, with a range up to 7 years.

In respect of the first set of offences, it had been noted by the judge who dealt with the hearing on 27 July 2025 when guilty pleas were entered, that it was agreed that it was not a case of one party exploiting the other; they were both young at the time, acting together, and being exploited by those above them.

As we have explained, there is no transcript of the judge's sentencing remarks, but from counsel's joint note the main points were as follows.

The judge referred to the Sentencing Council guideline for Sentencing Young People. In respect of the first indictment, the judge accepted that the appellant had played only a lesser role in view of the agreement previously recorded at the earlier hearing. The judge said that the offences in the second indictment were different. The appellant was older. He already had the experience from the first indictment offending. A drugs line was attributed to the appellant. He had an operational function, and there was a significant amount of messaging over relatively significant periods of time. Relatively significant amounts of drugs were found. There was significant financial gain and some understanding of the scale of the operation. That added up to ‘significant role’. Harm was category 3.

The judge ignored the previous conviction. It was an aggravating factor that the second indictment was committed whilst he was on bail. The judge said in relation to the first indictment that the appellant's young age, 18, was significant but less significant for the second indictment. The judge said that he had not seen evidence of remorse but he took into account the content of the letters from the appellant's mother and girlfriend; in particular his education and the limitations of his finances were important.

For the 2023 offences the judge said the appropriate sentence at trial would have been 2 years. With 15% credit for his guilty pleas, not long before trial, the sentence was reduced to 20 months.

In respect of the second indictment, the starting point was 4½ years. The judge allowed a little more than a 20% reduction for the guilty pleas. The sentence was 40 months. There would be no separate penalty on Count 5, possessing criminal property.

The absolute minimum appropriate sentence for the offending, the judge said, was 60 months (5 years). There was credit of 343 days spent on remand and on qualifying curfew whilst on bail.

What is absent from counsel's note of the judge's sentencing remarks is any specific reference to totality. Without a transcript it is impossible to be sure whether the judge referred to it expressly or by implication. We do not know, for example, whether he made any adjustment either to the sentence of 20 months for the first indictment or the sentence of 40 months for the second to ensure that the consecutive sentences in total remained proportionate. Mr Cogan has informed us this morning, in answer to the Court's question, that so far as he and prosecuting counsel could recall, the judge did not make any specific mention of totality.

In his grounds of appeal and oral submissions Mr Cogan concedes that the judge was entitled to find that the appellant had played a significant role in relation to the second indictment. Mr Coogan submits, however, that the judge failed to recognise and apply the principle of totality. He accepts that consecutive sentences were justified because the offences in the second indictment were committed whilst on bail awaiting sentence for the first. However, having regard to the appellant's young age in particular, a sentence of 5 years' imprisonment was manifestly excessive.

Developing those submissions before us this morning, one point Mr Cogan made was that this was a case of the appellant being a tool rather than an instigator of the drug dealing which was taking place, drawing upon the evidence of his previous assessment at the age of 13 of being supplied with drugs by others.

We think there is force in Mr Cogan's submissions on totality. It is clear from the agreed note of the judge's sentencing remarks that before appropriate credit for plea the sentences would have been 2 years on the first indictment and 4½ years on the second, a total of 6½ years. That would have been a very long sentence for a young man of this age.

Although the appellant was over 18 when the first offences were committed in 2023, and over 20 when the second set of offences were committed in 2025, we bear in mind the Sentencing Council guideline on sentencing young people, and the well-known guidance from this Court in recent years that achieving the age of 18 is not to be regarded as a cliff edge after which ordinary adult sentences will necessarily be appropriate. The maturity of a young offender is as important as his chronological age.

On the basis of the pre-sentence report, there was a degree of immaturity. That inference was offset to an extent perhaps by his obvious intelligence and academic achievements; but academic ability and maturity do not necessarily go together in young people. The appellant had clearly become streetwise. His deliberate decision to carry on dealing in class A drugs while awaiting sentence for similar offences may itself show immaturity; or it may simply have been a cynical calculated decision to carry on dealing for as long as he could.

The guideline starting point for the first set of offences, with a lesser role, was 3 years' custody, which the judge reduced to 2 years before credit for plea, no doubt having regard to the appellant's young age. The guideline starting point for the second set of offences (significant role) was 4½ years, which the judge adopted before credit for plea.

Whilst the individual component sentences after credit for plea of 20 months and 40 months may have been justified, we think it was necessary then to reflect the principle of totality by making some significant downward adjustment, particularly having regard to his age.

Standing back, we think that the sentence of 5 years' custody was manifestly excessive. The appropriate total sentence here was 4 years rather than 5 years. We shall achieve that by reducing the sentences on the first indictment by 6 months from 20 months to 14 months, and by reducing the sentences on the second indictment by 6 months from 40 months to 34 months.

Because the appellant was under 21 years old at the date of all these convictions, the sentence must technically take the form of detention in a young offender institution rather than imprisonment.

We therefore allow the appeal. We quash the sentences of 20 months on the first indictment and substitute concurrent sentences of 14 months' detention in a young offender institution. We quash the sentences on Counts 1 to 4 on the second indictment and substitute concurrent sentences of 34 months' detention in a young offender institution. The sentences on the second indictment will remain consecutive to those on the first, making a total of 48 months.

We note, finally, that although the appellant was sentenced only some 4 months ago to a custodial sentence of 5 years, he is no longer in custody, having been released on home detention curfew. That is presumably because he had served the equivalent of almost a 2½ year sentence whilst on remand or on bail with a qualifying curfew. The outcome of the appeal is not academic, however, because the reduction we have made will obviously affect the length of his licence period.