R v Edward Harris

The provisions of the Sexual Offences (Amendment) Act 1992 apply to these offences. Under those provisions, where an allegation has been made that a sexual offence has been committed against a person, no matter relating to that person 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 the offence.

On 11 March 2025, in the Crown Court at Canterbury before His Honour Judge Taylor KC ("the judge"), the appellant pleaded guilty to: (i) one offence of raping a child under 13, contrary to section 5(1) of the Sexual Offences Act 2003 (Count 11); (ii) four offences of sexual assault of a child under 13, contrary to section 7(1) of the 2003 Act (Counts 1 – 4); (iii) two offences of engaging in sexual activity in the presence of a child, contrary to section 11 of the 2003 Act (Counts 5 and 6); and (iv) four offences of causing a child under 13 to engage in sexual activity, contrary to section 8 of the 2003 Act (Counts 7 – 10). Of these, counts 2, 4, 6, 8 and 10 were multiple-incident counts.

On 29 May 2025, the appellant was sentenced by the judge in respect of the rape (Count 11) to a Special Custodial Sentence for an offender of particular concern, comprising a custodial term of ten years and a further on year licence period. Concurrent sentences were imposed in relation to the other offences as follows: on Count 1, five months' imprisonment; on Counts 2 and 5, ten months' imprisonment; on Counts 3 and 6, two years and nine months' imprisonment; on Count 4, three years and seven months' imprisonment; on each of Counts 7 and 9, four years and six months' imprisonment; on Count 8, seven years and six months' imprisonment; and on Count 10. seven years' imprisonment.

The appellant now appeals against his sentence with the leave of the single judge.

The appellant was born in 1962 and was aged 63 at the date of his sentencing.

On 27 September 2021, the victim's mother reported to police that her son had been the victim of sexual abuse by the appellant, who was a family friend. The offending covered the period August 2004 to August 2011, when the victim was aged between 5 and 11 years. The victim made a video recorded statement to the police. When the appellant was arrested and interviewed, he denied any sexual contact between him and the victim, saying that the allegations were false. He maintained his denials, initially entering not guilty pleas to the charges. However, after the trial had commenced, and shortly before the victim was due to be cross-examined, he changed his pleas to guilty.

The victim would visit the appellant's house regularly. The appellant kept toys in an attic room at the address, and one day he invited the victim to come up to the attic to help pick out a toy. The victim did so; it was just the two of them. After he had chosen a toy, the appellant kissed him (Count 1). He told him not to tell his parents. He was 5 years old when this first happened, but it was not an isolated incident. The appellant kept on kissing him when they were alone, which occurred quite frequently (Count 2).

Over time the appellant's offending progressed from kissing to physical contact. In particular, the appellant touched the victim's penis (Counts 3 and 4) and the appellant touched his own penis in the victim's presence (Counts 5 and 6). The victim was always told not to tell his parents. He would often cry about it when he was at home, but he dared not tell his parents what was happening.

The victim's family moved to a different area shortly before his 7^th birthday, but his family still returned to visit the appellant. It was during these visits that the appellant's abuse progressed to putting the victim's penis into his (the appellant's) mouth (Counts 7 and 8) and getting the victim to touch the appellant's penis (Counts 9 and 10).

The victim recalled a specific occasion, around Christmas, when they were visiting and the appellant took him up into the attic room. On that occasion the appellant penetrated the victim's anus with his penis (Count 11).

In 2014, the appellant was tried and found guilty of 14 offences. Count 1 related to the anal rape of a family member. Counts 2 – 11 concerned indecent assaults on the same victim, committed when he was under 16 years of age. This offending first occurred in 1999 and continued until at least 2004. Counts 12 – 14 concerned a further family member and incidents that occurred within the period 2005 – 2009. Counts 12 and 13 related to sexual activity with this victim and Count 14 to inciting him to engage in sexual activity when under the age of 16.

The appellant was sentenced for these offences on 11 February 2014 by Her Honour Judge Taylor KC, who had presided over the trial. She treated Count 1, the rape, as the lead offence in relation to the first victim. She imposed an overall sentence of 12 years' imprisonment that was made up as follows: eight years imprisonment on Count 1; a consecutive term of two and a half years' imprisonment on Count 6; concurrent terms of two and a half years' on each of Counts 9, 10 and 11; and concurrent terms of two years' imprisonment concurrent on each of Counts 2 – 5, 7, 8 and 10. In relation to the second victim: on Count 12, a consecutive term of 18 months' imprisonment; and concurrent terms of 18 months' imprisonment on each of Counts 13 and 14.

The appellant had no other previous convictions.

The judge took Count 11, the rape of a child under 13, as the lead offence. He described the offending as a six year campaign of abuse against a child who had barely settled into primary school when it began. The judge recognised that the victim had suffered severe psychological harm, including depression, anxiety and suicidal ideation over many years, so that the harm was at Level 2 under the Sentencing Guidelines. He placed the appellant's culpability as within Category A "by some significant distance", given that there was significant planning, grooming behaviour and an abuse of trust. Rightly, no issue is taken over this categorisation. Accordingly, a starting point of 13 years' custody, with an offence range of 11 – 17 years applied to Count 11.

The judge identified an aggravating feature, namely the steps that the appellant had taken to prevent the victim from reporting the abuse. He considered that there was little mitigation available to the appellant.

In terms of how he should deal with the appellant's 2014 convictions, the judge adopted the approach advocated by Mr Taylor, the appellant's counsel, that rather than treating these convictions as an aggravating factor, the judge should approach the sentencing exercise by asking himself how much more the appellant would have received if he had been sentenced for all the offences on the same occasion. The judge explained that he adopted this approach because the offending covered by the current indictment straddled the previous offending and to take account of totality considerations.

The judge noted that the offences for which the appellant was sentenced in 2014 involved circumstances that were "starkly similar" to the offending before him. He said that the appellant had deployed a tried and tested, calculated methodology for abusing boys over a period that in all had extended from 1998 to 2010, moving from one child to another to perpetrate his abuse.

The judge noted that the Sentencing Guidelines stated:

The judge said that he was dealing with harm caused to three separate victims and over a decade's worth of abuse. He considered that the notional sentencing judge dealing with all offences would have identified an overall sentence of 22 years; imprisonment, inclusive of the ten per cent credit that the appellant was to receive on this occasion for pleading guilty on the day of the trial. He explained that had the appellant contested matters, he would have imposed a term of 11 years and two months' imprisonment for the aggregated offending that was before him. Accordingly, taking account of the ten per cent discount and in light of the previous sentence of 12 years' imprisonment, the judge imposed a sentence of ten years' imprisonment.

Recognising that he had not offended in the five years since his release from the 2014 sentence, the judge determined that the appellant was not "dangerous".

Mr Taylor argues that the judge erred in finding that if the two indictments had been dealt with together, sentences totalling 22 years' imprisonment were merited.

Mr Taylor further contends that the judge erred in simply subtracting the 12 years imposed in 2014 from the notional overall sentence of 22 years that he (the judge) identified. He says that the judge failed to pay sufficient regard to totality.

Mr Taylor also argues that the judge failed to discount the figure that he identified to reflect the fact that the appellant had not re-offended in the five years since his release or done anything to aggravate his position since his release from the sentence for the first set of convictions; and that the judge failed to apply the ten per cent credit for the appellant's guilty pleas.

The judge faced a difficult sentencing exercise in this case. He was fully entitled to take the approach he did of seeking to identify the overall sentence that would have been imposed had the appellant been sentenced at the same time for his offending against all three of his victims. Indeed, as we have noted, this was the approach Mr Taylor urged the judge to take. From the appellant's perspective, this had the advantage that he was not treated as having relevant previous convictions which, given the similarity of the offending, would have been a seriously aggravating feature. However, it also followed from the adoption of this approach that in identifying the notional overall sentence that would have been passed on the one occasion, less prominence was accorded to the absence of any recent re-offending after the appellant’s release from custody. Furthermore, we note that it would have been open to the appellant to ask for the offences that are before us to be taken into consideration when he was sentenced in 2014. We do not consider Mr Taylor's point that no complaint had been made to the police at that stage to be a sufficient response; plainly, the appellant knew what he had done.

We also consider that the appellant's grounds proceed on a misunderstanding of the judge's approach. The judge did not arrive at his figure of 22 years by simply taking the 12 years imposed in 2014 and adding to it the sentences he would have imposed for the offences that were before him, if they had stood alone. To the contrary, it is clear from his reasoning that he made significant allowance for totality. The Count 11 offence of rape, in isolation, attracted a starting point of 13 years' custody, as we have explained. This figure would then fall to be uplifted to reflect the fact that there was more aggravation than mitigation. It would then be further uplifted given this was not a single offence, but the lead offence that was to reflect the entirety of the eleven counts on this indictment. Accordingly, if this offending were viewed in isolation, it would attract a pre-credit figure of around 16 – 17 years' custody. It follows that in identifying a pre-credit figure of 11 years and two months, the judge had indeed made a substantial reduction to allow for totality in respect of the offending before him and the sentence of 12 years' imprisonment that had already been imposed.

Furthermore, the judge did reduce the sentence he would otherwise have imposed by ten per cent to reflect the appellant's guilty pleas, as he explained, and as Mr Taylor acknowledged in his oral submissions to us today.

In his written grounds, Mr Taylor also suggests that the judge was insufficiently aware of the offending that was before Her Honour Judge Taylor in 2014, to arrive at the 22-year figure that he did. It may be that we have additional information before us, that was not available to the judge when she passed sentence. However, none of this material suggests that the judge misunderstood the position or approached these other offences on an erroneous basis. Mr Taylor has not suggested otherwise.

We consider that the judge was entitled to treat the appellant's sustained offending against three victims over a 12-year period as a campaign of rape and to consider that an overall sentence of 22 years' imprisonment was just and proportionate.

Accordingly, for the reasons we have identified, the appellant's grounds are not well-founded. His sentence is not manifestly excessive and we dismiss the appeal.