R v Aaron Akram

His Majesty's Solicitor General seeks leave to refer as unduly lenient a sentence of 4 years' imprisonment passed by His Honour Judge Lowe sitting in the Crown Court at Gloucester following the offender's conviction at trial of three offences committed against his former partner V.

V is entitled to lifelong anonymity pursuant to the provisions of the Sexual Offences (Amendment) Act 1992. No matter relating to her shall, during her lifetime, be included in any publication if it is likely to lead members of the public to identify her as the victim of the offences. This prohibition applies unless waived or lifted in accordance with section 3 of the Act. In order to protect the anonymity of the victim it is necessary to anonymise the offender.

Count 1 was an offence of rape committed on 11 June 2023. The offences charged in count 2, (rape) and count 3 (assault by penetration) took place some months before that, although it was difficult to identify exactly when they occurred.

The offender and V had started a relationship together in 2019. In 2021 they had a daughter together. Some two months later they split up but continued to see each other from time to time because of their daughter. V continued to go on days out with him and the baby because she wanted their daughter to have her father in her life. The offender visited them at her home pursuant to contact arrangement.

From May 2022 the offender would turn up at V's flat when he felt like it. He would spend time with his daughter but he also wanted to engage in sexual intercourse with V. On such visits, once their daughter was in bed, the offender would make sexual advances towards V. More often than not she agreed to engage in sexual intercourse and made no complaint about it because she was tired and he pestered her for sex.

There were two occasions when, as the jury found, it was clear to him that she was not consenting. The first was some time in the winter or spring of 2022/2023 on an occasion when the offender had come to visit V and their daughter at their flat. V had put their daughter to bed and felt tired. The offender started pestering V for sex, telling her, "I've come all this way. You don't even want to have sex with me", and "We never have sex any more." V told him she wanted to sleep and did not want to have sex. V curled up on the sofa and pretended to be asleep in the hope that the offender would give up and go home. This did not deter him. After about 10 or 15 minutes, the offender approached her and began touching her vagina under her clothing and then penetrating her vagina with his fingers (count 3). He then proceeded to have vaginal intercourse with her (count 2). She lay still and put up with it. It is not entirely clear whether she was still pretending to be asleep.

On 10 June 2023 V had asked the offender to look after their daughter whilst V went out for the evening with her friend. He agreed to do so and to drive to their flat in Gloucester and look after the child in the time available before he had to resume his shift again early the following morning in Oxford. V prepared clean bedding for the offender to sleep on the sofa if he wanted to because she was aware he had to leave for work early the next day. When V came home at around 2.30 a.m., the offender was still awake. V had a shower and went to bed. The offender came into her bedroom, removed his clothing, got into the bed and climbed on top of her. When V told him to get off, he told V that he only wanted a cuddle. V commented that he did not need to be naked, nor to pull her pants off for a cuddle, but the Offender persisted and began rubbing against her. V told the offender she did not want to have sex with him and told him to get off her. She shuffled up the bed to get away, but the offender persisted and penetrated her vagina with his penis. V told him, "[name], you know this is actually rape", to which he replied, "Good." The offender noticed V was bleeding and believed she was on her period and that he could, therefore, ejaculate inside her. V said that she did not want him to do so. However, he continued having sex with her for about 10 or 15 minutes and ejaculated inside her. He then rolled over and went to sleep.

Because the Judge had the great advantage of presiding over the trial, we think it is helpful to set out in a little detail what he said in his sentencing remarks as to the nature of the relationship and the context in which the offending occurred. He said this:

The Judge also described the offender as someone who had a severely unhealthy attitude towards intimate relationships, whereby he considered women his resource, and sex his entitlement.

V decided to report the offender to the police after an incident shortly after the 11 June rape in which their daughter fell and hit her head, for which she blamed the offender.

When he was interviewed, he maintained that when V had come home he was in bed; she had had a shower and then she had got into bed with him; that she had initiated kissing and that they engaged in fully consensual sexual intercourse. He denied that he had been persistent in asking for sex or that V had ever had sex without consenting to it. He stated the relationship had been on and off since their split but that they had been trying to work on it for the sake of their baby.

The offender is aged 26 and has no previous convictions. The judge had positive character references both from the evidence which he had heard at trial, in addition, glowing references from members of his family and others attesting to his being a hard-working and caring man with many instances of kind and caring behaviour being set out in those references.

There was a victim personal statement made by V in December 2025, so some 2½ years or more after the offences. In that statement V said that his behaviour had ruined her confidence and her mental state and she had been taking medication for anxiety during their relationship, which involved taking an increased dosage since. She said she had got so used to what he was doing that she had become numb to it and that she only now fully realised that it was rape after she had spoken out about it. She expressed the view that although he was purportedly coming to see the daughter, this was an excuse for trying to have sex with her. He would on occasion turn up at 7.15 p.m., knowing her bedtime was at 7.30 p.m., barely see her and then stick around for that purpose. She explained that she and her daughter had moved out of the house, notwithstanding that they had been planning to stay in it long-term, because she had become so scared of his knowing where she lived. She struggled with sleep, had lost focus at work and felt like she could never fully trust anyone again. The tone of the statement made clear, that as often happens with those who are the victims of domestic abuse, it was only really after the events in question that she came to recognise the full extent of the controlling behaviour of the offender.

In a sentencing note the Crown invited the Judge to treat count 1 as the lead offence. It was contended that it fell within category 3B of the guideline, which has a starting point of 5 years and a range of 4 to 7 years. It was suggested that the following aggravating features were present. There was an element of abuse of trust; there was ejaculation, notwithstanding that the victim had said it was not wanted; the offences took place in the victim's home where she was entitled to feel safe; there was an exploitation of contact arrangements; there was the presence of a child in the house, albeit asleep, who might have woken up at any time; and there was the context of the domestic controlling behaviour.

In sentencing, the Judge rejected the submission that there was any element of abuse of trust and said that the offences fell at the lower end of the range. He said that there were no particular aggravating features, that the child was not a witness to the events and that the location, timing and domestic context did not, on the facts of the case, amount to aggravating features. He said that to the extent there was a degree of exploitation of child contact, that was not very significant. His assessment was that there was no significant risk of reoffending and the prospect of rehabilitation on release from prison was positive.

The Judge referred to something which V had said in her video recorded statement which was that in reporting the offending she did not want the offender to be locked away, but just wanted it to stop. There was, the Judge said, substantial mitigation to be found in the offender's lack of previous convictions and the evidence of his positive good character. He said that he was balancing the number of offences against what he described as the very significant mitigation and imposing the least sentence commensurate with the seriousness of the offences by imposing concurrent sentences of 4 years' imprisonment on counts 1 and 2, and 2 years' imprisonment on count 3. He imposed a 15 year restraining order.

In support of the argument that the sentence was unduly lenient, Ms Robertson argues that a significant uplift was required from the category starting point of 5 years for a single rape for the aggravating features which were identified in the sentencing note at trial. She further submits that the judge simply failed to uplift the sentence on count 1 to reflect the additional offending in the earlier rape and assault by penetration for which concurrent sentences were imposed on counts 2 and 3.

Mr Maunder, who represented the offender at trial and has appeared before us, made cogent and very attractively presented submissions. He started by accepting that this was what he called a plainly lenient and merciful sentence, but not, in his submission, one which was lenient by such a margin as to make it unduly lenient. He emphasised that the Judge was particularly well placed, having presided over the trial, to understand the nature of the offending and the character of the offender and the victim. He was particularly well placed to understand what Mr Maunder described as the chemistry between the offender and the victim and the nuances of their relationship which was an on-going and complicated relationship. He submitted that the lead offence had not involved any abuse of contact arrangements, but rather occurred when the offender had been invited to attend to babysit to enable V to go out. He said that when the Judge referred to the location, domestic context and timing as not being aggravating factors, he really meant that they were of little significance as aggravating factors and he was well placed to assess the weight to be attributed to them.

He submitted that the Judge had taken account of totality in reaching his final sentence; that was what he meant when he referred to the balancing of the number of offences, and indeed, when the matter was raised by counsel for the Crown after he had finished sentencing, the Recorder confirmed that he had taken into account all the offences as a matter of totality. In all those circumstances, Mr Maunder submitted that the sentence was not unduly lenient.

We keep in mind the principles reflected in the authorities which govern Attorney General's References. We do not need to set them out at any length. A sentence is unduly lenient when it falls outside the range of sentences which the Judge, applying his mind to all the relevant factors, could reasonably consider appropriate. It must always be remembered that sentencing is an art rather than a science, that the trial judge is particularly well placed to assess the weight to be given to various competing considerations and to assess the offender and the victim in cases of this sort. Leniency, where the facts justify it, is to be commended, not condemned, a sentiment enshrined in section 231(2) of the Sentencing Act 2020 which provides that a custodial sentence must be the shortest sentence commensurate with the seriousness of the offending. The purpose of the system of Attorney General's References is the avoidance of gross error, the allaying of widespread concern at what may appear to be an unduly lenient sentence and the preservation of public confidence in cases where a judge appears to have departed to a substantial extent from the norms of sentencing generally applied by the courts in cases of a particular type.

In relation to the lead offence the aggravating features identified by the prosecution were of real weight. This was a rape in the context of a controlling relationship which amounted to domestic abuse. When V pointed out that it was rape the offender replied, "Good". V was in her own home where she was entitled to feel protected and safe. The presence of the child upstairs may not have been a very substantial mitigating (sic) factor, given that the child did not witness the offending, but it was not wholly irrelevant; not only might the child have woken up but it meant that she could not leave the house to flee his advances. There was ejaculation despite the fact that she had specifically asked him not to, which is of greater significance given that the fact that he was not wearing a condom. There was, as the Judge rightly said, no abuse of trust in the sense in which that expression is used as category factor in the guideline, but there was exploitation of the fact that he was trusted to be alone with her in the house at night and the trust created in the context of the previous relationship, and the fact that he was able to take advantage of being able to be alone with her in the house because the relationship involved her wanting him still to be able to play a part in parenting their daughter. It is, in our view, significant that V had to leave her home as a result of this offending.

His clean record at the age of 26 afforded the only real mitigation. As the relevant guideline for rape makes clear, positive good character cannot normally afford any mitigation for an offence of this seriousness. The fact that V's motive in reporting the offending was to get it to stop rather than to have the offender locked up does nothing to reduce its seriousness or his culpability, and as her victim statement reveals, it is only really in retrospect that she has come to see what the real nature of his domestic abuse amounted to.

The sentence on the lead offence then required a substantial uplift to take account of the earlier incident of rape months earlier. This had many of the same aggravating features and in this case it did involve taking advantage of contact arrangements rather than being when he had been invited to attend to, as Mr Maunder put it, babysit. Of course, account has to be taken of totality but this was separate offending on a separate occasion.

Looking at the matter in the round, in our view, the least sentence required for all the offending was one of 6½ years. It follows that that sentence was not merely lenient but was unduly so.

We, therefore, grant leave. We quash the sentences on counts 1 and 2 and substitute sentences on each of those counts of 6½ years' imprisonment. The sentence on count 3 remains undisturbed and the sentences continue to run concurrently.

There is one other very minor matter which we ought to deal with. We are grateful, as always, to the office for drawing to our attention that the victim surcharge should have been in the amount of £190 and has been incorrectly recorded. The record should, therefore, be amended. Save in that respect, there is no change to the ancillary orders imposed by the Judge, and the substantive effect of our decision is to increase the total sentence from one of 4 years' imprisonment to one of 6½ years' imprisonment.