R v Lee Blake & Ors

On 31 March 2025 in the Crown Court at Nottingham, the appellant, Lee Blake, the appellant, Sophie Wootton, and the applicant Christopher Jones were sentenced by HHJ Michael Auty KC for their respective roles in a criminal enterprise to produce and supply industrial quantities of cocaine and cannabis and associated firearms offences. Jones and Ms Wootton pleaded guilty at various times to some of the offences on the indictment and were convicted after trial on the others.

Jones was sentenced to a total of 25 years' imprisonment and Ms Wootton to a total of 8 years' imprisonment. Blake pleaded guilty on a written basis to all the offences for which he was sentenced, the most serious of which was possessing a firearm with intent to endanger life, contrary to section 16 of the Firearms Act 1968. He received an extended determinate sentence of 9 years' imprisonment comprising a custodial term of 6 years and an extended licence period of 3 years on that count, and shorter determinate concurrent sentences on the other counts. He appeals against sentence by leave of the Single Judge on the sole ground that there was no justification for the finding made by the judge that he was a dangerous offender and passing an extended sentence.

Ms Wootton pleaded guilty to being concerned in supplying cannabis, for which she received a 3-year sentence, which the judge made consecutive to the sentence he passed on two firearms offences, the most serious of which was, again, an offence under section 16 of the Firearms Act 1968 (and, indeed, involved the same firearm that was the subject of the charge against Blake.) On each of these offences he passed the statutory minimum sentence of 5 years' imprisonment. She appeals against her sentence on the drugs offence on the basis that the judge appears to have afforded her no credit for her personal mitigation in reaching a notional sentence after trial of 4 years before giving appropriate credit for her guilty plea.

Jones renews his application for leave to appeal against sentence on grounds that were refused by the Single Judge. The two points that he makes are mis-categorisation by the judge of his role in relation to the cocaine charge as a leading role, and that insufficient regard was paid to the principle of totality in reaching the 25-year sentence passed in respect of all of the offences for which he was being sentenced.

The background to the case is set out in great detail in the Criminal Appeal Office summary but can be summarised in fairly short order. Ms Wootton, a single parent, was in a long-term relationship with Jones, although they did not live together and Jones had many other girlfriends. Jones was significantly involved in the wholescale supply of cannabis and cocaine to other significant dealers. He was personally responsible for establishing numerous cannabis grows for the purposes of onward supply, renting space in properties, diverting electricity, and kitting out the houses with professional equipment to ensure that the cannabis reached its full potential yield. He involved Ms Wootton and another single parent mother, with whom he had developed a more recent relationship (the co-defendant Drew Williamson) in that aspect of his criminal enterprise, getting them to assist with the storage, processing and distribution of his stock.

Ms Wootton sorted cannabis for Jones into huge kilogram-sized packages each worth between £7,000 wholesale and £19,740 retail, and stored some of his drugs and associated paraphernalia. She also carried out deals herself. Analysis of her phone showed that she was a trusted and active participant in Jones's cannabis enterprise. A search of her house revealed cannabis in various stages of preparation.

Jones was also involved in the purchase and supply of kilogram quantities of import quality cocaine, but there is no suggestion that Ms Wootton had anything to do with that side of his drugs enterprise.

The police had suspicions about Jones and had tried to arrest him in September 2021 but he made determined and ultimately successful attempts to escape from the officers by driving his van dangerously away from the scene where they had stopped it. Ironically, it was in consequence of a domestic argument between Jones and Ms Wootton that the police finally caught up with Jones.

In the early hours of the morning on 23 October 2022, police attended Ms Wootton's address having been summoned by a concerned taxi-driver, who had overheard her having an argument with Jones on the phone in his cab. When he pulled up outside the house, Jones was there and the driver became concerned for Ms Wootton's safety. When the police arrived, Jones had disappeared. Ms Wootton was very upset, nervous and shifty and tried her best to get the police officers to leave. She pretended that Jones did not have a key to her property and refused to name him. However, she did permit the officers to come inside the property to check if Jones was there. When they looked around, they discovered tubs of cannabis in the bedroom.

Ms Wootton was arrested for possession with intent to supply the cannabis and a search was carried out of her house. In the top drawer of her bedroom chest of drawers police discovered a prohibited firearm, a 0.22 Pro CSG long barrelled self-loading pistol, which had been modified to make it easier to conceal. Associated ammunition was found in the same drawer, some of which had been loaded into magazines ready to be deployed, as well as shotgun cartridges. A mock silencer, body armour, scales, other drug-related paraphernalia and £55,000 in cash were also recovered during the search.

The pistol was scientifically examined and successfully test fired. Blake's DNA was found on it. As a result, the police searched his home address and found eight fully functioning prohibited slam guns with firing pins, bullet proof vests, another cannabis grow and cocaine. His phone had evidence on it consistent with the supply of cocaine at street level. There were also searches for the local gun shop and for information about how to grow cannabis. However, his only link to Jones and Ms Wootton was the DNA found on the gun which Ms Wootton had concealed in her bedroom.

After Ms Wootton's arrest, Jones moved into Ms Williamson's address. He was arrested by the police at that location three days later, on 26 October 2022. A search of Ms Williamson's house later that day revealed around 13 kilos of freshly harvested cannabis, much of which was already bagged up and ready to be sold on, together with very similar paraphernalia to that which was found at Ms Wootton’s address. There was around £9,000 in cash in a bag on the window ledge, and Jones’s fingerprint was found on one of the notes. A kilogram block of high purity cocaine was found in Ms Williamson's bedroom, which had all the hallmarks of being recently imported into the UK. It had a retail value of around £100,000.

Police investigations into Jones revealed other properties with cannabis grows, one of which was depicted on a video found on Ms Wootton's phone a month earlier. On examination of the bank accounts of Jones and Ms Wootton there were around £37,000 of unexplained cash deposits going into Jones's accounts, and Ms Wootton’s bank balance had gone from being overdrawn to what the judge described as a “healthy credit” over the period of the indictment, although it was nowhere near the same size as the amounts going into Jones's account. There was no evidence of unexplained cash going into Ms Williamson's account.

Ms Williamson, who pleaded guilty to being concerned in supplying a Class B drug and was found guilty after trial of possession of cocaine with intent to supply and possession of criminal property, received a sentence of 5 years' imprisonment. Her application for permission to appeal against sentence was refused by the single judge and has not been renewed.

In his sentencing remarks, the judge pointed out that the quantities of drugs and cash recovered on any one day were just a snapshot of Jones's criminal enterprise but even so, well over £350,000 worth of controlled drugs and over £65,000 of cash were recovered. The adapted firearm and the ammunition both had a level of sophistication and a capacity for inflicting carnage seldom seen in the criminal courts. He found that Jones had cynically exploited the two women, albeit that they were willing and enthusiastic participants at least up to a point. Both were single mothers with a young child. Ms Wootton was struggling financially, Ms Williamson less so, as she had a good job. However, there was a marked difference between the way in which the two women were treated by Jones. There was evidence, at the trial, of domestic violence and coercive and controlling behaviour by Jones towards Ms Wootton.

In sentencing Jones for the firearms offence the judge characterised his role as a significant role, where the offending was part of a group activity, and as falling squarely into high culpability, although he acknowledged that the firearm was not discharged and said he would make an appropriate downward reduction for that. He found that this was category 2 for harm with a starting point of 14 years and a range of 11 to 17. He took the count of possession of cocaine with intent to supply (which was count 4 on the indictment) as the lead offence for the drugs offences, and treated the counts of possession of criminal property as aggravating features. He said that had the cocaine count stood alone it would have attracted 15 years and count 5, possession of the firearm with intent to endanger life, 14 years. That reflected the criminality involved in the cannabis enterprise as well as all the other charges. However, he adjusted downwards for totality the 29 years that the aggregation of 14 years and 15 years would have produced, resulting in an overall sentence of 25 years: 13 years' imprisonment on count 4, and 12 years on count 5 (the firearms offence), passing shorter concurrent sentences on the remaining counts.

The judge's observations when sentencing Ms Wootton indicate that her counsel, Mr Eckersley, did a very great deal in mitigation to reduce the sentence that the judge originally had in mind for the firearms offence (which the judge indicated would have been in double figures) to the statutory minimum of 5 years. The judge said that Ms Wootton had to bear responsibility for being prepared to warehouse, for however short a time, a firearm of such lethal capacity, with the associated ammunition. There had to be a consecutive term for the cannabis. He did not indicate when sentencing Ms Wootton into what category he placed the drugs offences within the relevant Sentencing Guidelines, but the inference is to be drawn that he accepted the prosecution's categorisation (category 2, significant role). He appears to have taken the starting point in that category of 4 years' imprisonment as both the start and finish of the notional sentence and assessed her as entitled to 25 per cent credit, which led to the sentence of 3 years on that count.

So far as Mr Blake was concerned, the judge said that it was not easy to categorise his offending but he placed both firearms offences into category 2B. Instead of imposing consecutive sentences he elevated the sentence on count 5 by 12 months to 6 years. Thus far, there could be no complaint, and Mr Molloy on his behalf makes no complaint about the length of the custodial element of the sentence. However, the judge went on to say that he was satisfied that there was a real and ongoing risk from Mr Blake of the commission of further specified offences, and therefore it seemed to be necessary and appropriate to extend the licence period. He gave no further reasons for the finding of dangerousness.

There is well-documented medical evidence that Blake has a history of schizophrenia and that he is accepting treatment with antipsychotic medication. He was undoubtedly a very vulnerable individual who was susceptible to exploitation by criminals. At the time of the offending behaviour, it appears that he was subject to an ongoing conditional discharge pursuant to sections 37 and 41 of the Mental Health Act. However, as Mr Molloy pointed out, it is clear from more recent psychiatric evidence, which this Court has seen, that those who were responsible for the order on that occasion may not have fully appreciated the level of vulnerability of Mr Blake, and it may well be that he was offending in circumstances where there was insufficient supervision as part of the conditions of his conditional discharge. All of that has now changed. The most recent psychiatric evidence indicates that Mr Blake is engaging with the relevant supervising and treating clinicians who will be able to keep more of an eye on what goes on as and when he is released into the community.

Mr Molloy's main point was that although somebody who is vulnerable and who is being used to store firearms for criminal operators could well have been regarded as dangerous, the judge did not really explain why he reached the conclusions that he did. That is not entirely the judge's fault. He had a very difficult and complex sentencing exercise to carry out. However, he did not have the advantage of either seeing or hearing any evidence from Mr Blake, because he had pleaded guilty on an earlier occasion and did not participate in the trial. Also, and tellingly, there was no pre-sentence report. When a sentencing judge is considering the question of dangerousness itisoften the practice to seek professional help from a probation officer, with or without additional evidence from a competent medical practitioner, such as a psychiatrist, so that the judge has a complete picture of both the vulnerabilities of the defendant and what could be done to manage those vulnerabilities going forward. The purpose of an extended sentence is to protect the public from the risk that an offender is going to commit similar offences in the future.

We can understand the judge's concern, but we can also see the force of the points that have been made by Mr Molloy. Taking into account all that we have seen and heard, and conscious of the fact that it is unusual for this Court to disturb a finding of dangerousness made by a trial judge, we consider that there is a great deal of force in the submissions that Mr Molloy has made in his Advice and Grounds of Appeal, and which he has reinforced very helpfully in his oral argument to the Court today. We are persuaded that in making the finding of dangerousness in these unusual circumstances, without giving adequate reasons and without the benefit of a pre-sentence report or updated psychiatric evidence, the judge did fall into error. Had he had the benefit of all the psychiatric evidence that this Court has considered, and seen it in the round, he might not have reached the same view. In consequence of that, we consider that the appeal should be allowed, the finding of dangerousness overturned, and the extended sentence substituted with a determinate sentence of 6 years' imprisonment.

So far as Ms Wootton is concerned, Mr Eckersley relied on the fact that the judge had acknowledged the coercive, controlling and violent relationship to which she was subject. She was of previous good character and she was a single mother caring for a son who is now aged 9. The judge had described her as "besotted" with Jones and described his behaviour towards her as "ruthless". There was evidence at the trial of at least four occasions in which she had photographed injuries which she said Jones had inflicted upon her. There was fear and a degree of dependence. That can be illustrated by the fact that it was the taxi-driver's concerns for the safety of Ms Wootton which led to Jones being apprehended in the first place. Therefore, Mr Eckersley submitted, it was a little surprising that when it came to the drugs offences, which related only to the cannabis, that the judge did not appear to have mentioned any of that significant mitigation. Mr Eckersley submitted that the judge failed to give a clear explanation of how he reached the figure of 4 years as the notional sentence after trial that he did.

Had the drugs offending stood on its own, those would have been highly persuasive arguments. The problem, however, is that the judge was not just sentencing for the drugs offending. He was also sentencing for the firearms offence which was very serious. From his sentencing remarks, it is clear that he was persuaded by Mr Eckersley to bring down the sentence that he originally had in mind very significantly on account of the same mitigation. Mr Eckersley, in response to that point, suggested that it may well be that the judge had accepted his submissions that Ms Wootton occupied a lesser role in relation to the firearms offending, which would have brought the starting point within that range to one of 7 years with a range of 5 to 9 and therefore, if the judge had taken the starting point of 7 years, he could have reduced that to 5 years with 2 years taken into account for mitigation.

Ingenious though that particular analysis is, it does not seem to us to fit in with what the judge actually said. We consider that the inference to be drawn from what the judge said is that he considered this to be a case of medium culpability rather than lesser culpability for which, of course, the sentence would have started at 10 years. That fits with his remark that he originally had in mind a sentence in double figures, and would mean that the amount that he credited for mitigation would have been half that sentence, 5 years. But even if that is not the correct analysis, one still has to stand back and look at the overall picture and the totality of the sentence that was passed.

It would have been better if the judge had given a clearer expression of how he reached the figure of 3 years' imprisonment on the drugs offending. We cannot speculate as to how he did that. One can see how a sentencing judge might have taken the period of the offending and the degree of involvement as aggravating features and then balanced them against the mitigating features, but he did not say any of those things, and it is impossible to draw any inference other than that fact that he took the starting point in the guideline as the beginning and end of the notional sentence after trial and simply discounted for the guilty plea. Although that could be characterised as an error in principle, we have to stand back and look at the overall picture.

We consider that if there had been an adjustment downwards in the sentence for the drugs offences it is highly likely that the judge would have passed a longer sentence in relation to the firearms offences. In any event, we cannot say that a total of 8 years for all the offending, even with the substantial mitigation to which Mr Eckersley has referred, could be described as manifestly excessive. It was not wrong in principle to pass consecutive sentences, and therefore this appeal is dismissed.

So far as Jones is concerned, Mr Watson renews his application for leave to appeal, having been refused by the Single Judge. As we have already indicated, Mr Watson in his oral submissions concentrated upon two factors: first, the ascribing of a leading role to Jones in relation to the cocaine, rather than the cannabis, and secondly the question of totality.

So far as leading role is concerned, we bear in mind the fact that the judge presided over the trial. He was in the best possible position to evaluate the role that Jones played in relation to all of the offending and he gave clear and cogent reasons in his sentencing remarks for ascribing him a leading role both in relation to the cannabis and the cocaine. The judge was entitled to make the findings that he did in relation to the quality of the cocaine that was found at Ms Williamson's address, its high value, and its wrapping, which suggested that it was close to the sources. In consequence, this Court could not possibly interfere with his evaluation that Jones played a leading role.

In any event, the judge chose the cocaine count as the lead count. He then had to reflect the overall criminality in respect of the drugs offending by elevating the tariff on that count. That criminality included the very significant production of cannabis and there was no doubt that Jones played a leading role in that. The judge was quite right to pass a consecutive sentence in relation to the firearms offences and no quarrel could be made with the tariff that he passed on those. The question of totality really involves the Court standing back and asking: was the judge wrong to take off only 4 years for totality having reached the sentences that he would have passed independently on all the drugs offending and the firearms offending? In our judgment, he was not. The resulting sentence was just and proportionate. There was no specific mitigating feature for the judge to consider which he failed to consider, and this was very serious offending, as the single judge said.

Therefore, we are not persuaded by Mr Watson, eloquently though he put the points orally this morning, that there is any arguable basis for seeking to disturb the sentences passed on Jones. This renewed application is refused. We are grateful to all three counsel for their submissions.