R v Dean Brown

On 1 July 2025 at Salisbury Magistrates’ Court, Dean Brown, the appellant, pleaded guilty to a series of offences of theft from shops. On 4 October 2025 at Swindon Magistrates’ Court, he pleaded guilty to a further series of shoplifting charges. On 16 January 2025 at Salisbury Magistrates’ Court, he pleaded guilty to a yet further series of thefts.

On 20 January 2025 at Swindon Magistrates’ Court, he was committed for sentence in respect of all those offences. On 20 February 2026 in the Crown Court at Salisbury (before His Honour Judge Bromige) he was sentenced to 20 months’ imprisonment concurrent for each offence. On 11 March 2026, at a hearing pursuant to s.385 of the Sentencing Act 2000, the sentence was confirmed.

The appellant's co-defendant, Jodie Brown, was sentenced to 12 months’ imprisonment for similar offending.

The appellant and his wife, Jodie Brown, committed a number of theft from shops over the 15-month period from 2 October 2024 to 17 January 2026. The appellant pleaded guilty to 19 counts of shoplifting from shop premises operated by B&Q, Spar, WH Smith, One Stop Community Shop, the Co-op, Marks and Spencer, Lidl, Aldi, and, on a large number of occasions, from the Four Acres Connect/BP Garage. There were in total 28 individual instances of theft. Both the appellant and his co-defendant were on police bail from 22 April 2025 and many of the offences were committed while they were on bail. The total value of goods stolen attributed to the appellant was £2,113.90. For Jodie Brown the total came to £3,522.46.

The appellant, who was aged 46 at the time of the sentence now under appeal, had 39 convictions for 88 offences spanning from 7 August 1997 to 2 October 2024. He had multiple previous theft and kindred offence convictions. Ms Brown was aged 28 at sentence. She had 6 convictions for 8 offences spanning from 18 October 2012 to 2 October 2024. She had one relevant previous conviction for theft.

On sentencing the appellant on 20 February 2026, the judge applied the general sentencing guidelines for theft. He held that the offences fell into culpability A of those guidelines because of the number of offences. As to harm, he noted the effect of the appellant's conduct on the businesses and the value of the goods stolen and concluded that the case fell into harm category 3. Under those guidelines, the starting point for a Category 3A case was 1 year and the range 26 weeks to 2 years. He adopted 22 months as his starting point for the appellant and Mrs Brown.

He took into account the appellant's lengthy history of previous convictions and concluded he was "an entrenched criminal". He took "judicial notice of the wider impact that such prolific shoplifting has on the community". He said that the appellant had "little by way of positive mitigation", but he noted that now he had his driving licence back he had prospects of employment with a roofing company and was able to point to periods of stability when he was not involved in criminality. He said that the sentence after trial would have been above the guideline range of 30 months' imprisonment. He allowed one-third credit for plea.

When sentencing the appellant's co-defendant Jodie Brown, he adopted the same "category starting point" of 22 months. He referred to the steps she had taken to better herself, noting that she been able to find work, had been clean of drugs for some years and had not misused alcohol since a conviction in 2022. He said he had also read "the reference from the Nelson Trust which highlights that you are engaging with them positively whilst on remand". He concluded that that, taken with her difficult and deprived background, constituted significant mitigation. He concluded that "notwithstanding the prolific nature of your offending, a slight downward adjustment is appropriate. So the sentence after trial would have been 18 months' imprisonment. You are entitled to one-third credit, which means the sentence is 12 months' imprisonment" in respect of the co-defendant.

On 11 March 2026, at a slip rule hearing, the judge acknowledged that he had applied the general guidelines for theft and had not explained why he used those guidelines rather than the specific guidelines for thefts from a shop or a stall. He said he had used the latter guidelines because the "sheer scale" of the thefts in the present case lifted this case out of the allocation for "simple shoplifting". He went onto explain that:

It was argued by Ms Osborne in her singularly clear and helpful submissions on behalf of the appellant that the sentence was manifestly excessive for the following reasons:

As the Single Judge remarked, it was unfortunate that the Judge initially sentenced the appellant by reference to the general Theft Sentencing Guideline rather than the offence specific guidelines, namely the Guideline for theft from a shop or stall. The latter are the appropriate guidelines for shoplifting even if that offending is repeated.

It is right to say that the offence specific guideline does not identify expressly the appropriate approach to an offender with repeat offences. But that is not unusual. It is a matter of general principle that culpability is increased by repeat offending. We agree with the Single Judge that the Judge was entitled, as he did in his remarks at the slip rule hearing, to treat this case as falling within Category A High Culpability of the offence specific guidelines by reason of the repeat offending.

The harm category was Category 1 given the total value of the goods involved and the effect on the shopkeepers’ businesses. The frequent nature of the particular offending and the extent of the harm does not govern just the category range that applies, but also where in that range the particular case falls. In our view, the offending here would justify a sentence significantly above the starting point identified in the guidelines. The Judge was entitled to conclude, taking into account totality, that 22 months was the appropriate figure before aggravating and mitigating factors are considered.

The Judge was right to identify as a serious aggravating feature the fact that most of the index offences were committed whilst on bail. It is also to be noted that the appellant was much the older of the two defendants. The Judge also noted, correctly, that the appellant’s mitigation was very limited. In our view, the aggravating features comfortably outweighed what mitigation there was and the appropriate sentence before plea was 30 months. Allowing credit for plea produces a final sentence of 20 months, the figure adopted by the Judge.

As to the final ground of appeal, Ms Osborne points to the different treatment of the appellant and his co-defendant. In our view, the fact that the value of the goods involved in her offending were significantly greater than those in the appellant's case justified some increase from the starting point in her case, but the matters referred to by the Judge as mitigation in Ms Brown's case justified a significant reduction in her sentence. In our view, the difference in outcome between the cases of Ms Brown and the appellant was entirely justifiable given the difference in their respective cases.

In those circumstances, this appeal is dismissed.