R v Brandon James

The provisions of the Sexual Offences (Amendment) Act 1992 apply to this offence. Under those provisions no matter relating to the victim of the offence shall during the 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. Accordingly, in this judgment we shall refer to the victim as "C". This prohibition applies unless waived or lifted in accordance with section 3 of the Act.

On 9 October 2025 in the Crown Court at Bradford, the appellant was convicted after trial of one offence of sexual activity with a child, contrary to section 9(1) of the Sexual Offences Act 2003. He was acquitted of a number of other offences relating to the same child. He was sentenced to 3 years and 6 months' imprisonment and now appeals sentence with leave of the Single Judge.

In around July 2019 the victim in this case (who we shall refer to as "C") met and entered into a relationship with the appellant. At the relevant time C was aged either 14 or 15 and the appellant was aged 18.

In the course of the relationship the appellant was made to leave the family home and, with the assistance of C, moved in to live with her in her grandmother's house without the grandmother's knowledge. The appellant lived at that address with C for about 6 months, during which time consensual sexual intercourse took place. At some point the appellant moved out to live with a neighbour but then subsequently moved back to live with C in her grandmother's house, this time with the grandmother's knowledge and consent.

In due course the relationship came to an end and sometime later, in April 2022, C, who was by now 17 years of age, made allegations to college staff and to a youth worker about incidents that she alleged had occurred in the course of the relationship that she had had with the appellant. She was video interviewed by the police on 7 April 2022.

The appellant was arrested and interviewed the following day. He gave a prepared statement in which he said that all sexual contact was consensual. The appellant was charged by way of postal requisition in February 2024. The case was listed for trial on 6 October 2025.

At trial, although the appellant admitted that he had sexual intercourse with C, it was his case that she had told him, and he had believed, that she was 17 at the relevant time and it was only after the relationship had ended that he discovered her true age.

The appellant was aged 18 at the date of the offence and 25 when convicted and sentenced. He was of previous good character.

The appellant was convicted of the single count to which this appeal relates on 9 October 2025 and was sentenced on the same day. No pre-sentence report was obtained.

Section 30(2) of the Sentencing Act 2020 requires the court to obtain and consider a pre-sentence report before forming an opinion on sentence, unless the court considers that it is unnecessary to do so. Given the nature of the offence, the young age of the appellant at the date of the offence, his previous good character and the length of time that had elapsed between the commission of the offence and his conviction and sentence, it is the view of this Court that a pre-sentence report should have been obtained. We have considered whether we should now obtain a report ourselves. But given the outcome of this appeal, to which we will come shortly, have determined that such a report is not now necessary.

There was a victim personal statement from C dated 30 September 2025. We have read that statement and note with concern the effects that she has suffered since the date of the offending behaviour. However, we also note that that statement was completed before the trial at which the appellant was found not guilty of the majority of the offending.

When passing sentence the judge found that the appellant had not only known C's true age at the time he committed the offences but that he had known her age from the outset and that he knew that to pursue a sexual relationship with her was "fundamentally wrong". He observed that the law is in place and is intended to protect vulnerable, immature children from making judgments that are against their interest, and the fact that C appeared to have colluded with the appellant's intentions did not in any way mitigate the appellant's wrongdoing.

Applying the relevant Sentencing Guidelines the judge found that the facts of the offence fell within harm category 1 as there was penetration of the child's vagina. Insofar as culpability was concerned, in the judge's view there had been a significant degree of planning, which placed the offence in culpability A. He stated that the significant degree of planning was evident from the fact that knowing that what he was doing was wrong, the appellant together with C entered into arrangements whereby he was "sneaked into" the grandmother's house and in that property engaged in sexual intercourse.

A category 1A offence has a starting point of 5 years' custody and a range of between 4 to 10 years' custody. There were no aggravating factors. In mitigation the judge took into account the appellant's good character, his age and own immaturity as well as what was said to be a degree of mental health issues which the judge found may have contributed to the impairment of the appellant's judgment. In consequence of those mitigating factors as outlined the judge reduced the sentence from the 5-year starting point to 3½ years' imprisonment.

Ms Beckett, who appears before us today as she did in the court below, accepts that the judge correctly categorised the offence as harm category 1, but submits that he erred in finding there was a significant degree of planning that would justify placing the case into culpability A. The appellant's move into the grandmother's home was something that she argues in writing was "positively orchestrated" by C, such that the planning was in reality her planning not the appellant's.

Whilst she realistically accepts that collusion on the part of the victim cannot amount to mitigation, she urges that it is relevant to culpability. None of the other culpability A factors applied. Stepping back, this was, she submits, a boyfriend/girlfriend relationship in which consensual sexual intercourse took place between two young people in which there was no great disparity of age and in all of the circumstances a sentence of 3½ years was manifestly excessive.

The difference between the starting points for a category 1A offence and a category 1B offence are stark. Whereas a category 1A offence has a starting point of 5 years' imprisonment, a category 1B offence has a starting point of just 1 year's imprisonment and a sentencing range between a high community order and 2 years' custody. Given the significantly different outcomes dependent on categorisation whether any culpability A factors apply requires very careful consideration. As noted in this case, the only culpability A factor identified by the judge was that there was in his view a "significant degree of planning".

What amounts to a "significant degree of planning" was considered by this Court in R v Dogra [2019] EWCA Crim 145. In that case, this Court having asked rhetorically what "significant planning" meant in the context of the sentencing for rape, stated that:

In the present case whilst we pay due regard to the views of the sentencing judge who was also the trial judge, we agree with the submissions made by Ms Beckett that, on the facts of this case, in which the appellant and C considered themselves to be in a relationship and where the appellant had been caused to leave the family home and needed somewhere to live, the actions of the appellant and C working together to enable the appellant to move into the address at which she was living without the knowledge and consent of the householder does not reach the level of the threshold of seriousness required to amount to a "significant degree of planning" in order to commit the offence of which he was subsequently convicted.

Accordingly, we find that the judge erred in his categorisation of this case, which we find should correctly have been characterized as 1B with a starting point of 12 months and a range of up to 2 years. In our judgment, taking into account C's age and the length of time over which the appellant was living secretly in the child's grandmother's house which whilst that may have been primarily or at least in part because he needed somewhere to live, enabled the appellant to commit the offence of which he was convicted, then balancing that with the appellant's young age and previous good character as well as the delays between offence, charge and conviction, we find that the appropriate sentence would have been one of 16 months' imprisonment. A sentence of this length would ordinarily require us then to consider whether that sentence should be one of immediate custody or could be suspended in accordance with the Imposition Guideline. However, in view of the time already served and which is likely now to result in the appellant's immediate or near immediate release, it is neither necessary nor appropriate to do so. To that extent therefore and for these reasons, we allow this appeal.

Before leaving this case however, we need to deal with two further matters. Firstly, the reduction in sentence below 30 months affects the length of time during which the appellant is liable to the notification requirements of section 80 of the Sexual Offences Act 2003. The appellant will now be subject to those requirements for a period of 10 years from the date of conviction rather than for life. Secondly, we note that the judge failed to impose a statutory surcharge upon the appellant as required by section 42 of the Sentencing Act 2020. Rather, a surcharge for firstly £34 but then subsequently amended to £181 appears to have been added administratively. In fact the correct amount of the surcharge would have been £228 for a sentence of imprisonment for more than 24 months, or as the sentence is as varied £187 where under 24 months.

As we have allowed this appeal to the extent indicated, we consider that we are not precluded by section 11(3) of the Criminal Appeal Act 1968 from correcting the position and imposing the surcharge ourselves and we therefore make an order that the statutory surcharge applies in the appropriate amount which is £187.