R v Mark Metcalfe

On 20 September 2024 the applicant was convicted of manslaughter, for which he was sentenced to 14 years' imprisonment and also preventing the unlawful burial of a body, for which he was sentenced consecutively to a further 3 years' imprisonment. His total sentence was therefore 17 years' imprisonment, coupled with the imposition of the statutory victim surcharge in the sum of £190. This is the renewal of his application for leave to appeal against sentence following the refusal by the Single Judge.

The circumstances of the offence were briefly as follows. Overnight, between 11 June and 12 June 2022, the applicant met with the deceased and a female friend at a house where crack cocaine was available. They all purchased crack cocaine and then went to the applicant's house for the purpose of taking the drugs together. The applicant, the deceased and her friend parted at the applicant's home but there came a time when there was an argument and the two women left the house. The female friend told the court that the applicant was looking for sexual contact that evening and indeed that he had asked her to return to his home with the promise of more crack cocaine.

The judge concluded in due course that not only was the applicant attracted to the deceased but he made a similar offer to the deceased to come back to his home address with the promise of more crack cocaine. Certainly the deceased returned to the applicant's home after the argument and they were together in his bedroom. The applicant's housemate or neighbour gave evidence of recalling that the deceased was in his bedroom at that time and that, on hearing banging in the living room, he came downstairs to the living room where the applicant was with the deceased and the applicant assured him that they were engaged in consensual sexual activity.

In fact what had taken place was that there had been an attack by the applicant upon the deceased which led to the deceased being injured and leaving her blood in the room, deposited in various places. It was found even after the applicant had tidied and cleaned the room. Blood was found on the floor by the window, on a sofa, on a skirting board and on the radiator. A clump of the deceased's hair was found at the foot of the stairs.

In order to dispose of the deceased's body and as part of his clean-up operation the applicant brought a wheelie bin into the living room and stripped the deceased naked apart from her socks. He concealed her body inside the wheelie bin, he then tidied and cleaned the living room and put the bin in the yard outside the house. The smell of the decomposition of the deceased's body caused others concern and so the applicant moved the wheelie bin, disposing of the deceased's body near a branch of Asda where it was found on 23 June 2022. He was caught on CCTV in the process of disposing of the body. The deceased’s clothes were disposed of in another bin which was collected and emptied a day later. The postmortem examination of the deceased was unable to definitively identify the cause of her death. This was a consequence of the length of time which the body had been hidden. Only stabbing, or the breaking of bones, could be excluded from her cause of death.

The applicant was interviewed by the police but did not provide any explanation as to how the deceased had come by her death. He maintained that her death had nothing to do with him and that he had no explanation for why her blood had been found at his home. He denied that he had any involvement with placing her body in the wheelie bin and further denied that he was the person shown on CCTV footage disposing of the deceased's body.

In applying the sentencing guidelines in relation to manslaughter in this case, the judge was faced with a dispute between prosecution and defence as to the appropriate category into which it fell. The prosecution contended that the offence fell within category B in respect of culpability on the basis that death was caused in the course of an unlawful act which involved an intention by the applicant just falling short of grievous bodily harm, or alternatively was caused in the course of an unlawful act which carried a high risk of death or grievous bodily harm which would have been obvious to him. In the further alternative, it was caused in the course of committing a serious offence in which the applicant played a more than minor role. All three of those types of case are brought within category B in terms of the guidelines and are hereafter identified as the category B criteria.

On the applicant's behalf it was submitted to the court that this was not a culpability B case but fell into culpability category C, principally on the basis that it was not possible for the court to be sure of how the deceased had come by her death.

The judge resolved this issue in his sentencing remarks by concluding that the deceased's death was not the result of some minor altercation which led to injury, or that what followed occurring as a result of the applicant panicking. Rather he concluded:

Little mitigation was available to the applicant, leading to the judge's conclusion that the appropriate sentence for the offence of manslaughter was 14 years, incorporating therefore a 2-year uplift from the starting point indicated by the guideline. The sentence in relation to the prevention of lawful burial needed to reflect the "utter contempt and deliberate disregard" for the deceased's body which the judge regarded as "truly callous". He imposed an additional 3 years' imprisonment consecutively for this offence as has already been observed.

In support of this application Mr McKone KC submits both orally and in writing that it was wrong in principle for the sentence to have been placed into culpability category B and that the overall sentence of 17 years was one which was manifestly excessive. In particular, it is submitted by Mr McKone, in his helpful and succinct submissions, that it was wrong for the court to be sure that this case had the characteristics necessary to place it into category B on the basis that the evidence disclosed that it was not impossible for the pathologist to definitively identify the cause of death.

In the absence of any such definitive identification of the cause of death, Mr McKone submits that the judge could not be sure how the deceased was assaulted or how much harm was intended as part and parcel of such an assault. Mr McKone also submits that the increase from the starting point of 2 years was excessive in this case, bearing in mind the circumstances and in particular that the judge did not have definitive evidence of a cause of death. He further submits that standing back, the overall sentence which was imposed in this case of 17 years was one which was not properly open to the judge.

In agreement with the Single Judge, we do not regard any of these grounds as being properly arguable. There was clear evidence upon the basis of which the judge could conclude that the deceased came by her death as the result of a serious assault perpetrated upon her by the applicant. The evidence of the applicant's neighbour or housemate as to what he heard, coupled with the physical evidence of injury to the deceased in the form of blood and the finding of hair, even after the living room had been cleaned, all supported the conclusion which the judge reached. Moreover, the judge was entitled to rely upon the extensive lies and deception in which the applicant engaged following the deceased's death as evidence that she had come by that death as a result of being assaulted by the applicant in circumstances where that assault satisfied the requirements of the category B criteria which we have set out above.

As is often observed, the judge in this case had the distinct advantage of hearing all of the evidence of trial and he was therefore well placed to forge the conclusion which he did in respect of the correct categorisation of what had taken place. He was also, in our judgment, entitled to uplift the sentence from the starting point. There were as he identified, clear aggravating features which justified such an approach. Not the least of which were the applicant's previous convictions and also the fact that this offence was one which was committed whilst intoxicated and in which drink and drugs were involved. Thus, the sentence of 14 years in this case was one which was clearly justified by the guidelines and their application.

It is accepted that there had to be a consecutive sentence in this case to reflect the applicant's conviction for the prevention of a burial. Whilst it is a criteria which brings an offence of unlawful act manslaughter within category B, in this case, as we have already noted, there were other elements of the factual circumstances which entitled the judge to reach the conclusion that this was a category B offence without having regard to the separate charging of the prevention of a burial in this case.

The manner in which the deceased's body was treated after her death showed, in our judgment, a shocking disregard for the respect that her body was due. In our judgment the additional 3 years which was imposed to reflect this aspect of the applicant's behaviour was thoroughly deserved.

It follows from all of these conclusions that we are satisfied that there is no proper basis upon which the sentence imposed in this case can be sensibly criticised and that this application is not arguable. Thus the application for leave to appeal must be refused.