R v Adam Robert Leddra

The provisions of the Sexual Offences (Amendment) Act 1992 apply to this offence. Under those provisions, where 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. For the avoidance of any doubt, we do not waive or lift the prohibition.

His Majesty's Solicitor General applies for leave to refer a sentence that she regards as unduly lenient. The sentence was one of 33 months' imprisonment concurrent on each of four serious sexual offences. The sentence was passed on 23 December 2025 in the Crown Court at Newcastle upon Tyne by Mr Recorder Gumsley, after the offender had pleaded guilty at the PTPH of two offences of sexual activity with a child, contrary to section 9 of the Sexual Offences Act 2003 (counts 1 and 2) and two offences of causing or inciting a child to engage in sexual activity, contrary to section 10 of the Sexual Offences Act 2003. Other ancillary orders were imposed to which we do not need to refer further. On account of his pleas of guilty he was entitled, and received, a reduction of 25 per cent.

The offences happened between June and December 2012, when the offender was 19 and his victim (to whom we shall refer as "V") was 15.

In June 2012, the offender contacted the victim via Facebook. Initially the messages were friendly. Both the offender and the victim gave their true age. The offender complimented the victim, telling her she was beautiful and that he was falling in love with her. She had been bullied at school owing to her appearance and was flattered. She told him that she felt she was ugly and overweight and he reassured her. She told him that she did not have a good relationship with her parents and he said that he was there to support her. He asked her to be his girlfriend and she said "yes".

After about 6 weeks the offender and the victim met for the first time in person. The victim went to an air show with her father and her friend. She and her friend went off on their own and met the offender briefly for 10 or 15 minutes before the victim's father called her and asked her to come back.

In August 2012 the offender invited the victim to his house. She had thought that he lived with his parents but no-one else was there. He kissed her, then complimented her on her breasts and touched them. He touched the victim's vagina and she touched his penis. The offender penetrated her vagina with his fingers, which hurt her. He tried to penetrate her vagina with his penis and the tip went inside. She told him to stop because it was hurting and he stopped. She felt embarrassed and useless because they had not been able to have sex. She had not had sex before. He asked her to marry him and she said "yes" (count 1).

Around the same period the offender caused the victim to send him photographs of herself inserting objects he had given her into her vagina including deodorant cans and soft drink bottles. He told her to put one bottle into her anus. She tried to do so. If she said "no" to this activity, he would tell her she did not love or trust him and that he would block her on social media. When she complied he praised and showed affection towards her. She told the police that she sent him at least 100 images. The indictment alleged two specimen counts, each relating to a single instance (count 3 and 4).

The third time they met was in November 2012. The offender said that his parents were away for the weekend and the victim agreed to stay the night. They discussed having sex and V insisted that he should wear a condom. She told her parents that she was staying with a friend and went over to the offender's house after school wearing her school uniform. They had dinner and watched a film, then the offender asked if she wanted to have sex. V said they could do. He put a condom on. She lay on the sitting room floor and he got on top of her. He began to penetrate her vagina with his penis. She asked him to stop and told him it was hurting. He tried to quieten her and told her it would be fine. He kept going. It felt as if he was trying to force himself in. She was frightened because he was not listening to her. She started to pretend that she was enjoying it because she did not know what mood he would be in otherwise. She thought (not having had sex before) that it must be normal. He said that he was going to take the condom off. She felt uncomfortable but did not object. She asked him not to ejaculate inside her and he said he would not but he carried on and ejaculated inside her. Afterwards she was in pain and bleeding (count 2).

The victim went to the doctor who carried out a pregnancy test. The result was negative. She missed a period and believed that she might be pregnant notwithstanding the result of the test. She told her teachers at school. She later suffered what she believed to be an early miscarriage.

Following the events that formed counts 1 to 4 the offender and V met again in January and February 2013. By this time V had turned 16. She and the offender engaged in sexual activity. In February 2013 V discovered that she had contracted herpes from the offender. He initially denied this before admitting that he had been infected by a previous sexual partner.

The offender was then arrested in relation to the sexual activity for which he was later convicted in 2014. The police found images of V on the offender's telephone and asked to speak to her. She told the offender, who said: "You do that, you’ve lost us forever. I’ll never be able to speak to you again. You do that, I’ll end up being put behind bars. This will happen to me." She decided not to speak to the police. So not only did he not take the opportunity to wipe the slate clean, more than that he was instrumental in preventing V from pursuing her allegations at that time. V ultimately decided to stop contact with the offender in June 2013. She had not spoken to him since.

The offender was arrested at his mother's address on 6 December 2023 and interviewed under caution. When interviewed under caution the offender stated that he could not recall V, could not recall having sexual intercourse with her and could not recall asking her to insert objects into her vagina. There was 2 years between his first being charged in 2023 and the passing of sentence in December 2025. We have received no explanation for the delay.

The offender was 19 years old at the time of the offending. All of the matters recorded against him postdate the instant offending. He has one caution for possessing indecent photographs of a child dated 23 May 2013 and another for failing to comply with notification requirements dated 12 August 2020. Prosecution counsel at the sentencing hearing confirmed that the indecent images were not of the victim V in the present case but involved making contact with a 13 year old on a social media site and soliciting images from her. The failure to comply with notification requirements related to a late registration of a change of address. He has one conviction, for four offences of engaging in penetrative sexual activity with a child, contrary to section 9 of the Sexual Offences Act 2003, all of which took place between 1 November 2013 and 31 January 2014, after the instant offending when he was 20 years old. He was sentenced in June 2014 to 20 months' imprisonment.

The facts of that conviction were summarised in the pre-sentence report for the instant offence as follows:

In relation to the offences committed in late 2013 and early 2014, there is reference in the pre-sentence report to the offender having admitted four counts, with two other counts remaining on the file which implies that he pleaded guilty to the four counts. We do not know at what stage he pleaded guilty or what reduction he was given on account of those pleas.

The Recorder had the benefit of a detailed pre-sentence report. The report referred to the offender having a loss of memory of events before an attempted overdose some 4 years previously. While the author of the report identified a high level of sexual preoccupation at the time of the offending, it also referred to a change of attitude after the offender had found Christianity. The writer considered that the remorse and regret that he expressed was genuine even if he did not show appropriate levels of victim awareness and victim empathy. The report referred to his having no settled employment but assisting with a charity run by his parents. He has two children but has no contact with them.

A risk assessment assessed him as posing a medium risk of serious recidivism, a high risk of further direct contact offences and a medium risk of an indirect contact offence. He posed a high risk of harm to children and a medium risk of self-harm. He had complied well with his previous supervision. It being the writer's assessment that he had a positive response to supervision, as he had complied to a high level and not committed any further offences in the decade or so since this offending or the offending that had resulted in his previous conviction.

The Recorder had available, and we have read, an impressive series of character references, largely provided by members of the Christian communities with which he was involved - one of whom was a magistrate. They speak with one voice in describing someone who has changed almost beyond recognition since the time of the 19-year-old offender who committed these offences. Of particular note is that the offender has disclosed his past offending to his character witnesses early on, and he has taken constructive steps to ensure that he works in an environment that is safe for all. He is described as someone who is always ready to help others and who shows real empathy for people with their own difficulties.

We have the advantage of a very positive prison report. His behaviour in prison has been "excellent". He is engaging with employment training and education while taking prescribed medication for anxiety and depression. He has not yet been able to start an accredited programme as they are not available where he is presently imprisoned.

Both in her recorded evidence and in two victim impact statements, V has given eloquent and powerful evidence of the profound and disastrous impact on her of the offender's criminality. Giving evidence to the Recorder, she described how she was, as the offender knew, vulnerable because of being bullied at school for her looks and having a difficult home life. She felt lost and unloved. The offender made her feel better by calling her "beautiful" and flattering her so that she believed she could trust him even over her own family. The traumatic effect of what he did was profound as she came to realise that he was taking advantage of the situation she was in for his own gratification. She described how, as often happens in such situations, she became to believe it was all her fault and that she should carry the guilt and shame alone. Throughout the decade that had passed she had flashbacks and the physical emotions and sense of being on her own made worse by the fact that he had infected her with herpes which serves as a frequent reminder of what had happened. She still has frequent triggers which makes for difficulties with her current partner.

The prosecution submitted that each of the offences fell into category 1A because the offender's grooming behaviour, and in relation to counts 3 and 4, because of the recording of sexual images of V. On that basis the starting point for a single offence of the four would be 5 years with a category range of 4 to 10 years.

Mr Walker, who has represented the offender before us, as he did below, submitted that 2 years had passed since the offender was arrested, which he describes as an unjustifiable delay. The offender was 19 at the time of the offending and his age and/or lack of maturity was a mitigating factor. Category 1 harm was accepted but culpability A was not. Because "not every case of flattery and affection amounts to grooming". There was genuine affection between the offender and V, evidenced by messages passing between the offender and a friend of V's. The offender had no previous convictions at the time of the offending. He demonstrated regret and remorse to the probation officer who took it as genuine. He had changed for the better since 2012 and the court should consider what sentence would have been imposed in 2014 had the offender been sentenced for all offending at the same time.

In sentencing the offender the Recorder said he had taken into account the offender's relative youth at the time of the offending, his genuine regret, the difficulties he had with his own medical health and the absence of further offending. The judge found that the offender's aim in meeting the victim was "sexual exploitation". He rejected the submission that the relationship was romantic albeit inappropriate because of the age difference. The offender sought to have sexual intercourse with the victim on their second meeting, the first having been cut short, knowing that she was only 15. He encouraged her to insert items into her body and to take photographs for his own sexual gratification. The judge referred to the psychological harm suffered by the victim, and the fact that the offender ejaculated inside her when she asked him not to and gave her a painful and incurable disease. He found that each offence fell into category 1 for harm, and that the offences fell into culpability A because of "clear grooming behaviour" such as "gaslighting or ignoring [V] when you were not getting what you wanted".

Having identified the starting point for a single offence as being 5 years the Recorder continued:

The Solicitor General's submissions may be shortly stated and fall under three headings:

Ms Przybylska submits that an increase of 1 year to reflect the multiple offences is inadequate. The judge made no adjustment at all for the identified aggravating features, namely: (a) the severe psychological harm inflicted on V; (b) infection with an incurable disease and (c) ejaculation inside her.

Although the Recorder did not specify precisely how he arrived at a reduction to 44 months before making any allowance for his plea of guilty, a reduction from even 6 years to 44 months amounts to a reduction of approximately 40 per cent, which cannot be justified. No issue is taken with the final reduction of 25 per cent for plea but the overall outcome is unduly lenient.

In carefully constructed submissions, for which we are grateful, Mr Walker submits that the sentence imposed was not lenient let alone unduly lenient. Central to his submissions is that the offences were committed when the offender was only 19 and that the guidelines are contemplating the appropriate sentence to pass on a fully mature adult. Mr Walker first submits that this is not a classic case of grooming, relying on the observations of a different constitution of this Court in R v Ivan [2020] EWCA Crim 301 at [27] that:

That said, Mr Walker asserts that a notional sentence of 6 years prior to mitigation was within the range of appropriate sentences that the Recorder could come to in order to reflect all of the offender's offending against V and the effect on her. He therefore submits that the 1-year aggregate increase from a starting point of 5 years was within the appropriate range of notional sentences at that point.

Next, while recognising that the Guideline for Sentencing Children and Young People did not apply and would not have applied if the offender had been sentenced promptly after his offending against V, Mr Walker relies upon the well-established principle that chronological age is not necessarily determinative of maturity and suggests that a reduction of 20% should be applied to reflect his age at the time of offending which would reduce the notional sentence of 6 years to 4 years 9 months or 57 months. Then, Mr Walker submits that there was scope for a further reduction of 10 per cent to reflect the fact that the offender was a person of good character when he carried out this offending and is now a reformed character who has made concerted efforts to improve himself. That would have led to a further downward adjustment from 57 to 51 months.

Next, by reference to the principle of totality, Mr Walker submits that it would have been open to the Recorder to make a further reduction of 16 per cent by analogy with the case of R v Green [2019] EWCA Crim 196. That would have taken the notional sentence down to 43 months, which is approximately what the Recorder said would have been an appropriate sentence after a trial.

Finally, Mr Walker contends for a further reduction for the 2-year delay in the period from charge to sentence. In doing so, he relies on R v Beattie-Milligan [2019] EWCA Crim 2387 and R v Wright [2025] EWCA Crim 384 and R v Birtchnell [2024] EWCA Crim 830. In the light of these considerations Mr Walker submits that the notional sentence of 44 months before applying the 25 per cent reduction for plea was not lenient and was fully justified.

The first issue is whether the Recorder was right to categorise each offence as falling within category 1A on account of grooming behaviour. The Recorder explained his conclusions on this issue as:

We can state shortly that we are satisfied that this was a conclusion that he was entitled to reach. On that basis the starting point for each single offence was 5 years with a category range of 4 to 10 years. However, as he recognised, the Recorder was not dealing with a single offence, he was dealing with four separate offences spread over a significant period with counts 3 and 4 of the indictment being expressed to be specimen counts. It was open to the Recorder to pass concurrent sentences and it was not wrong in principle to pass the same sentence on each count, although it would have been clearer if he had selected one count as the lead count and weighted it to reflect the existence of the other three. However he chose to proceed, the aggregate sentence had to reflect the overall criminality of the offender's conduct. Had the Recorder chosen to adopt one count as the lead count, he should have reflected the fact that he had to reflect not just one but four counts, each of which, if viewed in isolation, would have been subject to a starting point of 5 years. Expressed like this, it is in our view almost self-evident that an overall increase from 5 years to reflect one offence to 6 years to take account of another three offences is significantly too small. In our judgment, the least increase whether by weighting a lead count or otherwise that could be justified was from 5 to 8 years.

That adjusted starting point fell to be further adjusted because of the presence of the aggravating factors that we have identified. In our judgment, the least further increase that could properly be applied was a further year, taking the notional sentence before the mitigation to 9 years.

We accept that there is scope for some reduction on account of the offender's relative youth at the time of offending though there is no evidence of particular immaturity that needs to be brought into account. A reduction of 15 per cent seems to us to be the maximum reasonable reduction that could properly be made on account of his age. We also accept that there falls to be some further reduction for his genuine remorse, which goes hand in hand with the substantial efforts that he has made to reform and rehabilitate himself. We also take into account that he was of previous good character when carrying out these crimes. Viewed overall these features justify a maximum further reduction of 20 per cent. Taken together, these adjustments would bring the notional sentence down to about 6 years.

We do not consider it right to make any further allowance on account of the delay in this case. The delay between charging and sentence such as it was has not been shown to be detrimental to the offender. It may reasonably be said that it has the beneficial effect of allowing the offender to show his reform and rehabilitation since finding Christ which is reflected in the mitigation to which we have referred above.

Leaving aside the question of totality in relation to his previous conviction, a reduction of 25 per cent for his plea then suggests that a sentence in the region of 4½ years would be the least sentence that could reasonably be imposed if the 2025 offending were to be viewed in isolation. There remains however the principle of totality, given the fact of his previous sentence of 20 months. Our approach cannot be precise because we do not know sufficient of the circumstances that led to the sentence being imposed. Nor do we know what reduction for plea was given in that case. That said, there appear to be significant similarities in the nature of the offending since the offender apparently accepted twice having penetrative sexual activity with children with other than V.

In our judgment, it is overwhelmingly probable that a court dealing with all his offending at the same time would have imposed consecutive sentences to reflect the differences in victims and the timing of the various offences. Nor can we see any principal basis for having made a significant reduction in sentence that would otherwise be imposed in respect of the offending against V although some slight adjustment might have been made.

Though we have explained our approach in general terms, it should be emphasised that reaching the least sentence that could properly be imposed is not a strictly mathematical exercise. We have stood back and looked to see whether the result indicated by the exercise that we have outlined appears to us to be the least sentence that could properly be imposed. Searching for that least sentence, we take the view that had all his offending been sentenced at the same time, the standalone sentence of about 4½ years for his offending against V may properly have been adjusted for totality to 4 years consecutive to the sentence of 20 months. For these reasons we consider that the sentence of 33 months concurrent on each count imposed by the Recorder was unduly lenient being materially lower than the 4 ears that we consider to have been the least aggregate sentence that could properly be passed.

We have separately considered whether we should or should not intervene. Given the extent of the discrepancy we are satisfied that we should. In doing so, we will retain the Recorder's approach of imposing the same sentence on each count, though, as we indicated above, we consider that it would have been clearer if the Recorder had taken one count and treated it as the lead count weighting it to reflect the additional criminality involved in the other three counts. We therefor give leave, quash the sentence of 33 months on each of counts 1 to 4 and substitute sentences of 4 years on each concurrent.