R v Michael Weston

The appellant appeals with leave of the single judge against a sentence of 16 years' imprisonment for one offence of conspiracy to supply Class A drugs imposed by Her Honour Judge Kamill in the Crown Court at Snaresbrook on 13 December 2024.

On 12 November 2021 a shipment of at least 780 kg of cocaine at 92% purity was unloaded in a container at the docks in Felixstowe. That quantity of drugs had a minimum street value of £80 million and a wholesale value of at least £20 million. The consignment had been divided into holdalls each containing between 39 and 45kg of cocaine. The container was placed in holding at the port and on 26 November 2021 the driver (who was not involved in the conspiracy or in any wrongdoing) moved the container from the port. En route a party of conspirators (of whom the appellant was not one) distracted the driver and attempted to unload the drugs from the container lorry in a layby. That attempt was seen by a member of the public and was intercepted by the police who seized the consignment.

From 15 until 26 November 2021 the appellant had been staying in the Felixstowe area. In his own words he was "on standby" and "in high alert mode". He had travelled to that part of the country in response to instructions. He was awaiting further instructions as to where to attend in order to collect part of the shipment when it was divided up. The judge sentenced the appellant on the basis that he would have collected one holdall containing 39kg of cocaine. That was not challenged and was manifestly the minimum quantity which the appellant would have collected. The appellant was stood down after the interception of the shipment.

The appellant pleaded guilty on a basis that was accepted by the prosecution. This was that he had a significant but not a leading role in that he was not involved in the organisation of the shipment of cocaine but was instead acting as a courier under the instructions of others. We will consider later the consequences of the appellant playing such a role in relation to this shipment of drugs.

The appellant's involvement in this offence came to light when he was arrested in respect of a different matter on 13 December 2021. On that occasion he was caught while handing over 20kg of high purity cocaine to another man. His phones were seized and subsequent analysis of those phones revealed the appellant's involvement in this earlier offence.

The appellant is now aged 56. He has a number of previous convictions but only one (in 1996 for the supply of cannabis) in relation to the supply of drugs. He had no convictions between February 2000 and his sentence for the offence of December 2021.

The appellant was sentenced for the December 2021 offence on 15 July 2022 at Isleworth Crown Court. The sentencing judge on that occasion accepted that the appellant had believed that he was supplying 10kg, rather than 20kg, of cocaine and that he had again acted as a courier. The appellant was sentenced to six years and nine months' imprisonment after credit for his plea of guilty was applied to a notional sentence of eight and a half years (which had been reached after movement from a starting point of nine years).

In sentencing the appellant for the current offence, the judge took a notional sentence of 20 years and applied a discount of 20% for his guilty plea, which resulted in a sentence of 16 years' imprisonment.

The judge sentenced the appellant on the footing that he had been due to collect one holdall containing 39kg of cocaine. She took account of the offence of December 2021 and of the confiscation order of £49,000 made in relation to that offence. Having done so, she concluded that acting as a courier of Class A drugs was what the appellant did for a living. The judge pointed out that although the appellant was not the organiser of the shipment, he played a vital role. She noted that the importation of drugs would be a futile exercise without the involvement of those prepared to distribute drugs once they had been imported. The judge pointed out that the quantity of drugs which the appellant was to have collected was "way above" the indicative quantity in category 1 in the guidelines and she said that an increase from the category 1 starting point was, therefore, necessary.

Three weeks earlier the judge had sentenced the appellant's co-defendant, Kelly Robertson. Robertson was sentenced for her part in the same conspiracy. The judge approached Roberston's sentence on the basis that she would have collected a holdall containing 39kg of cocaine. However, the judge also took account of the fact that Robertson had been involved in the making of some of the arrangements for distribution of the contents of the container. Robertson had booked accommodation for the team who were to break into the container and she had renewed those bookings when there were delays in the movement of the container. In addition, Robertson was sentenced for two further offences of supplying cocaine and ketamine in December 2023. The judge, accordingly, sentenced her on the basis that in the period of 2021 – 2023 her lifestyle had been one of supplying Class A and other drugs. In Roberston's case the judge also took a notional sentence of 20 years before reduction for the plea for the November 2021 offence, which was then reduced to 15 years after credit for her guilty plea. Sentences of 11 and four years' imprisonment were imposed for the other offences, and all of the sentences were ordered to run concurrently with each other. Robertson was aged 44 at the date of sentence. She had a single previous conviction, in 2011, for one offence of simple possession of cocaine and one offence of possession of a prohibited weapon, for which she had received a community order. It is apparent that in determining the appropriate sentence for Robertson the judge had particular regard to the impact on herchildren of her time in custody and to Robertson's commendable behaviour while in prison.

Five grounds of appeal were advanced in writing on behalf of the appellant:

In granting leave the single judge said:

Against that background, Mr Lazarus, who appears before us on behalf of the appellant, sensibly concentrated his argument on the first ground of appeal. He did not, however, abandon the other grounds.

We turn to the level of the notional sentence. The appellant makes the primary point that the notional sentence before credit for the guilty plea of 20 years was "far too high".

The indicative quantity for category 1 of the relevant guideline is 5kg of cocaine. Those to be regarded as having a "significant role" include those who have an operational function in a chain and those who act with an expectation of significant financial advantage. The starting point for those with a significant role in category 1 cases is ten years' imprisonment, with a category range of nine to twelve years. However, the guideline expressly says:

The conspiracy of which the appellant was part was evidently being conducted on the most serious and commercial scale. The quantity of drugs which the appellant himself was to collect was only a small part of the total consignment, but was itself just under eight times the category 1 indicative quantity. Although he acted as a courier the appellant was clearly a trusted member of the relevant operation. He was sufficiently trusted to be given responsibility for collecting 39kg of high purity cocaine and to be given information as to the location from which it was to be collected. The appellant's involvement was very close to the point of importation and he must have been aware of that, not least by virtue of having been directed to travel to the Felixstowe area.

It is also evident that the appellant was anticipating a significant financial reward. That appears from tenor of his text messages. It is also shown by the fact that he turned down another "job" to undertake this mission and that it was sufficiently worthwhile for him to stay in the Felixstowe area for eleven days. He either funded his accommodation himself or it was sufficiently worthwhile for his principal to fund that accommodation for him.

The judge was right to approach her assessment of the appellant's role on the basis that this was not an isolated incident but was an activity in which he was engaged as his livelihood. We will explain later why the judge was entitled to take account of the offence of December 2021 in this regard. However, even without that, the same conclusion flows from the facts of the November 2021 offence. The tenor of the appellant's text messages and the fact that he was entrusted to collect such a large quantity of cocaine indicate that he was performing a role in which he was experienced and with which he was at ease.

In those circumstances a substantial sentence markedly above the category range in the guideline was called for. We are, however, persuaded that the term of 20 years was beyond the appropriate notional sentence and was manifestly excessive. We will return to the effect of that assessment when we have considered the other grounds of appeal and their impact on the appropriate sentence.

The appellant says that the judge failed to take account of the principle of totality in light of the sentence which had been imposed on him in July 2022.

The guideline on Totality explains that where, as here, a judge is sentencing for an offence committed before another offence for which a defendant has already been sentenced, then:

Even though the offence which the appellant committed in December 2021 was offending of the same character as his involvement in the November 2021 conspiracy it was distinct offending. The judge did not order the sentence which she passed to be consecutive to that which had been imposed in July 2022. By virtue of s384 of the Sentencing Act 2020, that had the effect that the two sentences would be served concurrently from the time the judge imposed her sentence. No further modification or reduction was needed to take account of the fact that the appellant was being sentenced in December 2024 for offending which was distinct but of the same kind and committed in the same period as that for which he had been sentenced in July 2022.

The other grounds of appeal do not advance matters and we can deal with them shortly.

It was clearly relevant for the judge to consider whether the offence in November 2021 was an isolated incident or part of a pattern of behaviour on the appellant's part. The judge's assessment that the appellant made his living by acting as a courier of Class A drugs would have been justified by reference to the text messages which the appellant sent in relation to this matter standing alone. She was, however, fully entitled to have regard to the December 2021 offence and the information revealed in relation to that as confirmation of her assessment. For the judge to do otherwise would have been to sentence the appellant on a false basis and there was nothing inconsistent with the acceptance of the appellant's basis of plea in the judge acting as she did.

We turn to the contention that there was a disparity between the judge's approach to the appellant and that adopted in respect of Kelly Robertson. The approach to be taken to such a contention remains that enunciated by this court in R v Fawcett (1983) 5 Cr App R(S) 158, namely, whether a right thinking member of the public, knowing the facts, would conclude that the sentences indicated that something had gone wrong with the administration of justice. That is not the position here.

The judge adopted the same notional sentence of 20 years before giving credit for the guilty pleas in respect of both Kelly Robertson and the appellant. She did this even though Robertson had been more heavily involved than the appellant. As we have already noted, it is apparent that the judge attached weight to the effect of the imprisonment of Robertson on her children and to Robertson's conduct while in prison. That was a merciful approach. A higher sentence might well have been justified in Robertson's case. However, the fact that the judge adopted a merciful approach to the sentencing of Robertson would not amount to a disparity in relation to the appellant such as to indicate that something has gone wrong with the administration of justice if the notional sentence on 20 years on the appellant were otherwise appropriate. Similarly, the fact that the judge then ordered the sentences for Robertson's other offences to run concurrently with that for her part in the conspiracy was again a merciful course, but that would not provide any basis for challenging the sentence imposed upon the appellant if his sentence were otherwise appropriate, given that his sentence was to run concurrently with that which he was already serving.

There is similarly no force in the contention that account should have been taken of the interval between the appellant's phones being seized and him being charged. As this court pointed out in R v McGoldrick [2025] EWCA Crim 301 at [23]:

Such an interval can arise from the need to gather evidence in such cases; the need to establish the nature and extent of the involvement of a number of people; and the need to guard against the risk of alerting others to the extent of the authorities' knowledge of their involvement. The court's explanation in McGoldrick that "those who choose to involve themselves in such offending … are to be taken as bringing on themselves the risk of those consequences" is equally applicable here.

It follows that a substantial prison sentence was amply merited for the appellant's offending. However, for the reasons we have already explained, the judge adopted too high a notional sentence before credit for the appellant's guilty plea. The appropriate notional sentence was one of 16 years, which is an appropriate substantial uplift from the top end of the "significant role" category range. That would result in a sentence of 12 years and nine months' imprisonment, after credit for guilty plea.

Accordingly, we allow the appeal to the extent of substituting that term for the sentence of 16 years' imprisonment.