R v Jamie Ronan

This is an application by His Majesty’s Solicitor General for leave to refer a sentence under section 36 of the Criminal Justice Act 1988 (“the 1988 Act”) which she considers to be unduly lenient.

The respondent, Jamie Roman, is now aged 27 having been born on 3 April 1998. On 22 February 2024 after a plea and trial preparation hearing but before trial the offender changed his plea to guilty to an offence of robbery. His co-defendant Joe Ion was found guilty after a trial which concluded on 25 July 2025. On 3 December 2025 there was a Newton hearing, after which the offender was sentenced to 38 months' imprisonment.

We can take the facts, which are agreed, from the Reference. The robbery took place on 3 April 2022, the day the offender turned 24. Together with three others, including the co-defendant Joe Ion, the offender planned the robbery in advance. The offender and his co-defendant have consistently declined to name the other two robbers who have never been identified. Their target was Mr Andrew Gilbert. At the time of the offence, he was a director of Total Fishing Tackle Ltd, living in Ongar, Essex.

On the evening of 3 April 2022, Mr Gilbert returned home after a weekend at a show in Warwickshire where his company had run trade stands selling merchandise. These sales generated a significant amount of cash which Mr Gilbert had collected from his employees to take back home with him. He had not yet counted it but based on his usual takings from such shows he estimated it to total in the region of £40,000 to £60,000.

Mr Gilbert's home address was located in a rural area, set in and backing onto fields. He had few immediate neighbours, but his property was well equipped with CCTV. This CCTV captured what was to happen on his return home.

As he neared his property, Mr Gilbert drove past a black VW Scirocco parked in an open entrance to the fields behind his house. The road carried on round to his house but there was a direct route over the fields to the back of his property. Mr Gilbert later recalled seeing one male in the car and had the impression that he was on the phone and might have been smoking. It struck him as odd that the car was reverse parked into the gap rather than simply pulled into the side of the road. CCTV footage showed a vehicle matching the Scirocco driving past Mr Gilbert's house earlier that day.

Mr Gilbert arrived home and pulled on to his driveway shortly before 7.00 pm. He gathered some belongings before getting out of the car and going to the rear passenger door. He took out a camouflage bag from the back seat together with some personal belongings. The camouflage bag bore his company logo and contained all the cash from the weekend's takings.

At the time that Mr Gilbert was exiting his car three figures had made their way across the fields at the back of the house and were lurking behind the house. All three were dressed in dark clothes with hoods up and faces covered. CCTV footage clearly showed that the lead figure was holding a handgun, the second figure was holding something which could not clearly be discerned and the third had with him a black holdall.

As Mr Gilbert moved to the rear of his car, he heard footsteps on the gravel and saw three males running towards him at speed down the side of his property. The first male had his arm up level to the ground, with the handgun pointed straight at Mr Gilbert. Mr Gilbert could see the gun in the gloved hand of the lead male with a finger on the trigger. He believed that he might be shot at any moment. Mr Gilbert moved round the car to get out of the line of fire but then saw the second male coming at him from the other side of the car holding a clear bottle filled with liquid. The man appeared to be trying to remove the lid of the bottle and Mr Gilbert feared that it was acid. Mr Gilbert also saw a third male on the driveway carrying black Nike holdall.

As the males closed in on him, Mr Gilbert threw the camouflage bag and his belongings over the fence. This provided enough distraction for him to slip by the second male and run towards the road. He recalled hearing someone say, "Get him" and whilst the CCTV does not capture audio, there is a point in the robbery where the second male is seen gesturing towards the escaping Mr Gilbert and this appears to have prompted the first male with the gun to chase after him into the road.

Having run out into the road in front of his house Mr Gilbert turned left and did not stop. The first male with the gun chased briefly into the road but instead of following Mr Gilbert he turned right and went out of view of the CCTV. Moments later he was followed by the other two who had retrieved the bag of cash. By this time the Scirocco must have driven up and collected the three males as CCTV captured the car driving past the front of the house in the direction of Mr Gilbert, just seconds after the first male had turned right and disappeared from view.

As the Scirocco drove away it came up behind Mr Gilbert who was still running down the road. Its approach caused him to dive into the front garden of a neighbouring cottage and hide there. The VW stopped briefly outside the cottage before making off.

Once he had seen the vehicle leave the scene Mr Gilbert called the last dialled number on his phone, which happened to be one of his employees named Nicky Ion. He told him he had been robbed. He then immediately 'phoned the emergency services in a call logged at 6.59 pm to report the robbery.

In his ABE interview, Mr Gilbert explained it would not have been a simple matter for the robbers to have navigated their way to the back of his house, it would involve coming across country and would likely have required some form of prior knowledge and/or reconnaissance.

Subsequent investigation by the police using CCTV and ANPR established that the VW used in the robbery had been displaying incorrect number plates at the time of the offence. The correct vehicle registration showed that the car was registered to the co-defendant Joe Ion. A spare set of plates was later retrieved from the home address of Joe Ion's mother.

The offender was traced from DNA recovered from a cigarette stub found in the lay-by where the car had been parked.

Mobile phone numbers were identified for the offender and Mr Ion and data from the phones was extracted. It showed frequent contact between the phones on 3 April in the hour or so before the robbery, both located in the vicinity of Mr Gilbert's home address at the time of the robbery, the two phones were also co-located after the robbery at 9.10 pm in an area of Brentwood where Mr Ion's mother lived.

Mr Ion was stopped and arrested on 6 April whilst driving the VW Scirocco used in the robbery. A subsequent search of his father's address located the camouflage bag inside a black Nike holdall. No cash has ever been recovered.

The offender was arrested on 10 April 2022 and a search conducted of his home address. A phone was seized from just inside the hatch to the loft. This device was reviewed and found to contain the following: images of the offender wearing a black hooded jacket and face covering taken or saved on 3 April 2022; messages about waiting for the "geeza" to arrive, "keeping an eye out for him" and stating, "just gone past I think", the last of these having been sent at 6.55 pm; there was a message sent at 8.05 pm on 3 April in which the offender stated "Done" and a further message from the offender reading, "I'll end up with 5 but at the min I've got just over 3".

The offender appeared at the plea and trial preparation hearing on 22 May 2023 where he entered a not guilty plea and was remanded on conditional bail.

The PTPH form indicated that the offender accepted being the driver of the vehicle and that he had agreed to drive the car in exchange for money but he did not know or suspect that a robbery would be committed.

The prosecution declined to accept the offender's basis of plea (not least as they had run the case against Mr Ion at trial on the basis that he had been the driver of the Scirocco). The trial judge decided to hold a Newton hearing in order to determine the facts upon which the offender would be sentenced. The offender gave evidence and was cross-examined. We have seen a transcript of the Newton hearing and the sentence which followed. Having heard the evidence, the judge was not satisfied to the criminal standard that the offender had not been the driver. However, she was satisfied that he played a significant part in the planning, that he knew a weapon, whether real or imitation, was to be used and that he was taking a share of the proceeds, not simply being paid a fee to drive.

The offender was aged 27 at the date of sentence. He was a man of previous good character with no previous convictions or cautions. There was a pre-sentence report and a number of character references, all of which we have read carefully. The author of the pre-sentence report concluded that the offender represented a medium risk of serious harm given his readiness to get involved in serious offending when under financial pressure.

Referring to the Sentencing Council guideline for domestic robbery, which both counsel had agreed was the most applicable to the robbery on the driveway of Mr Gilbert's home, the judge placed his offending into category B2, reasoning as follows in relation to culpability:

The judge went on to identify extensive mitigation in the form of the offender's previous good character, his remorse accompanied by an apology to Mr Gilbert at court and the fact that the offender was still young at the time of committing the offence. She mentioned the positive references from family and employers showing how much his life had changed over the three years since the offence and the fact that he was now a carer for his partner's step-father, a man with disabilities.

Turning to credit, the judge said that the offender had indicated an intention to plead guilty at the PTPH which would entitle him to a reduction of 25 per cent. However, he would not be entitled to the full reduction as there had been a Newton hearing. The judge reduced the discount by a further five per cent to reflect the mixed results at the Newton hearing and went on to pass the sentence of 38 months, to which we have already referred.

Mr Brocklehurst for the Solicitor General says that the judge erred in the following respects. First, she wrongly categorised culpability as B rather than A. Having found that the offender had had significant involvement in planning this robbery, and that he knew a real or imitation weapon was to be used to threaten Mr Gilbert, this was a case which fell squarely into category A culpability. There were no factors to category C which could properly apply to balance that out. There were elements of significant planning and organisation including awareness of Mr Gilbert's address, business habits and routine, obtaining a real or imitation handgun, changing the number plates on the car, reconnoitring the property, finding a place to park the car where the offender could watch for Mr Gilbert's approach and from where there was a cross country approach to the property and hiding items used during the robbery across different addresses afterwards. Given the isolation and country location of the property, the role of the driver to and from was necessarily a significant one.

Mr Brocklehurst also points out that although there was agreement at the hearing that harm fell into category 2 the high sums of money involved could have been marked by lifting it to category 1 or at least upwards within the range of category 2 harm. Even on the basis of category 2 harm, there was a starting point in A2 of eight years with a range of six to 10 years' custody. This was the point from which any adjustment for role and knowledge should have been made. Then there were aggravating features of attempting to conceal identity, attempts to conceal or dispose of evidence and Mr Gilbert being compelled through fear to move out of his home for a period of time. Finally, Mr Brocklehurst submits that the judge erred in arriving at the appropriate discount for plea. The offender had entered a not guilty plea at the plea and trial preparation hearing, only changing his plea a short time before the first trial date (although in the event the trial was postponed to the following year). The appropriate discount should have been reduced by virtue of the Newton hearing, such that the appropriate discount should have been no more than 15 per cent.

Mr Gray, appearing for the offender, argues that the judge was best placed to determine the offender's culpability having presided over the trial of the co-defendant and then having conducted the Newton hearing. The offender had not himself conceived the plan and agreed to join it only after it had been decided upon by others. He had not done any reconnaissance, and he had not obtained or held any weapon. Mr Gray points to the very extensive mitigation found by the judge, pointing out that although the judge did not identify the notional sentence before discount, it must have been just under four years. He submits that this was not an unduly lenient sentence for the role which his client performed.

The principles which apply to the application of section 36 of the 1988 Act are well established. They were summarised in Attorney General's Reference (R v Egan) [2022] EWCA Crim 1751 as follows:

It has been noted that even where this court considers that a sentence is unduly lenient, it retains a discretion as to whether or not to exercise the power to increase the sentence.

We have concluded that, having carefully and correctly conducted the Newton hearing and made her findings, the judge then fell into error in her categorisation of this offence. As Mr Gray submitted to the judge at the time, "It is a different level of culpability to agree to do an armed robbery with a gun, than it is to agree to do it with mere physical presence". Whilst the judge did not, in her sentencing remarks, explicitly identify the type of weapon which she found the offender had known would be used, it is plain from her qualification (“real or imitation”) taken together with the fact that the weapon was a handgun, that she was satisfied that the offender knew his associates were carrying a significant weapon which would be sufficiently threatening to make Mr Gilbert give up the very large amount of cash he was carrying. So, the offender was involved in planning, and he knew a significant weapon was to be used to threaten and take a large sum of money. These findings placed the offence and the offender's role in it squarely within category A culpability where there is a starting point of eight years and a range of six to 10 years. There can be no criticism of the judge's categorisation of harm as 2 since both counsel agreed that that was the correct categorisation at the time. The judge mentioned no aggravating features in the course of passing sentence. We accept that there were some, though of limited weight. The judge rightly referred to the offender's strong mitigation, good character, positive references from work and home, the delay and his remorse.

With all this in mind we turn to the appropriate sentence in this case. The correct starting point in the guideline was eight years. The fact that the offender was the driver rather than an active participant in a confrontation on the driveway would have allowed a small downward adjustment before consideration of aggravating and mitigating features. The aggravating features which Mr Brocklehurst identified needed to be balanced against the very significant mitigation which existed for this offender. Nevertheless, in our judgment it is impossible to arrive at a sentence before discount below five years and six months, i.e. 66 months.

We agree with Mr Brocklehurst that the judge erred in finding that the offender indicated a guilty plea at PTPH when in fact he entered a not guilty plea on that occasion. A 20 per cent reduction was the most that the offender would have been entitled to for his subsequent plea, which then needed to be reduced to reflect the mixed outcome of the Newton hearing. We shall follow the judge in reducing the discount by five per cent which results in a guilty plea discount of 15 per cent. Applying that discount to a notional sentence after trial of 66 months results in a sentence of 56 months. It follows that the sentence of the judge was a sentence which in our judgment was unduly lenient.

We have considered carefully whether this is a case where, in the exercise of our discretion, we should leave the sentence unaltered but have concluded that it is not such a case.

For the reasons we have given, we grant the Solicitor General leave to refer the sentence under section 36 of the 1988 Act. We quash the sentence of 38 months imposed below and substitute a sentence of 56 months.

Mr Gray, that will make a difference, we believe given the nature of this offence, to the release provisions. Since it is a sentence over four years for robbery, we think the release provisions of two-thirds apply rather than the half which would have applied to the 38 months. Mr Brocklehurst is nodding his head. Is that right?

MR BROCKLEHURST: I believe so, I always want to check these things before I say categorically so but that is my understanding.

LADY JUSTICE MAY: Yes. Well the precise calculation will be undertaken at the prison but will you check that please, Mr Gray, and explain to your client. I believe that the application of the release provisions and the rise to 56 months means that your client will serve two-thirds of that sentence before he can be considered for release. Thank you.

MR BROCKLEHURST: My Lady, did you want to say anything about the statutory surcharge as there was an error in the court below. I just notice it is mentioned in the case summary.

THE CLERK OF THE COURT: My Lady, it should have been £190, but it has been recorded as £222.

LADY JUSTICE MAY: In that case the court record should be amended to reflect the correct amount which is £190.