R v Liam Lieske

On 8 October 2025, having pleaded guilty before Reading Magistrates' Court, Liam Lieske, the appellant, was committed for sentence in respect of offences of possession of cocaine with intent and possession of cannabis with intent to supply. On 9 January 2026, in the Crown Court at Reading, he was sentenced by His Honour Judge Amjad Nawaz to four years' imprisonment on the cocaine offence and to a concurrent term of 16 months' imprisonment in respect of the cannabis.

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

On 30 July 2023, police officers attended the appellant's address to effect an arrest in relation to a matter unrelated to the index offences. Officers conducted a search of the address, during the course of which they found, in the appellant’s bedroom, 711 grams of cannabis, separated into deals, and 17.9 grams of cocaine. They also found several SIM cards, mobile phones, grip seal bags, clingfilm, scales and two lists of handwritten phone numbers, along with cash totalling £1,650.

The drugs seized were forensically examined and the appellant's fingerprints were found on bags containing the drugs. One of the mobile phones seized showed bulk marketing messaging indicative of the appellant selling crack cocaine. As part of a separate investigation a mobile phone was seized from a known associate of the appellant and when messages from that device were downloaded it was found that there were conversations between the two men relating to the supply of drugs. A drug expert report reported that the cannabis found at the appellant's address had a street value of £5,510 and the cocaine a street value of £1,800 which gave a total street value of the drugs seized of £7,310.

The appellant was aged 29 at the time of the sentencing hearing. He had four convictions for five offences during the period from 19 January 2017 to 12 December 2018. His relevant convictions included one drugs offence, for which he was fined on 4 October 2018.

The judge noted that the appellant had pleaded guilty at the first opportunity. He concluded that the appellant had exercised some degree of management in the enterprise, was trusted by others involved, expected financial reward from his involvement, and was aware of the scale of the operation. He concluded that the appellant had a significant role in street dealing the drugs. He referred to the guidelines and adopted a starting point of eight years' imprisonment for the cocaine offence, which he treated as the lead offence. He reduced that by one year to reflect the delay in the case coming to court, and by a further year to reflect the appellant's relatively good character and the positive aspects of the pre-sentence report. He then allowed credit of one third in respect of the guilty plea, producing a final figure of four years' imprisonment. He imposed a concurrent sentence of 16 month' imprisonment in respect of the cannabis offence.

On behalf of the appellant, Miss Sanders argues that the judge's starting point of eight years' imprisonment was too high and that had the judge's starting point been appropriate, the resultant sentence could, and should, have been suspended.

In our view, the judge was right to treat the possession of cocaine with intent to supply as the lead offence and to make the sentence for the cannabis offence concurrent. Doing so, however, required some upward adjustment of the sentence for the lead offence. That process adequately addresses the need to take account of totality.

This was street dealing offending where the quantity of cocaine was substantially less than 1 kilogram but more than 5 grams. In our view, it fell into category 3 of the guidelines. For an offender with a significant role in the operation, the starting point is four years and six months' imprisonment, and the range is three years six months to seven years. In our view, this case fell toward the lower end of the bracket in respect of the cocaine offence alone. Making appropriate allowance for the cannabis offending, however, the appropriate starting point was five years' imprisonment.

The judge was right to make some allowance for delay and personal mitigation. He allowed 25 per cent. In our view, that was somewhat generous given that the appellant had a previous drugs offence. We would allow a reduction of one year for the two factors. That would reduce the sentence to four years' imprisonment. Deducting one third for the guilty plea produces a final figure of 32 months' imprisonment.

Since that is in excess of the maximum term which currently can be suspended, the possibility of suspending the sentence does not arise.

Accordingly, we allow the appeal and substitute a sentence of 32 months' imprisonment for the four years imposed below for the cocaine offence. The concurrent sentence for the cannabis offence remains unaltered.