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	England and Wales Court of Appeal (Criminal Division) Decisions
You are here: BAILII >> Databases >> England and Wales Court of Appeal (Criminal Division) Decisions >> Attorney General's Reference No. 57 OF 2005 [2005] EWCA Crim 2191 (03 August 2005) URL: http://www.bailii.org/ew/cases/EWCA/Crim/2005/2191.html Cite as: [2005] EWCA Crim 2191

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IN THE COURT OF APPEAL
CRIMINAL DIVISION

		Royal Courts of Justice Strand London, WC2
		Wednesday, 3 August 2005

1. LORD JUSTICE LATHAM: On 12th May 2005 the offender was sentenced to two years' imprisonment at the Nottingham Crown Court by His Honour Judge Pert QC for an offence of manslaughter. The Attorney General seeks leave to refer that sentence to this court under section 36 of the Criminal Justice Act 1988 on the grounds that it is unduly lenient. We give leave to him to refer the sentence.
2. The offender is 22 years of age. The offence arose out of his relationship with Samantha Burrows, who is the same age as him. They both lived in Long Eaton in Nottingham and had been friends since they were 18 years old. It became a sexual relationship, but was stormy. The evidence makes it plain that that was to a large extent due to the offender's bad temper and jealousy. Eventually Miss Burrows ended that relationship in May 2004. Despite the termination of the relationship, they still met each other and indeed had sexual intercourse on a number of occasions. Miss Burrows regarded him as her best friend.
3. She met at some stage after May 2004 the deceased, who was Joseph Goodrich. He and Miss Burrows had been out together and had developed a sexual relationship by the time the offence occurred.
4. The offender had since May 2004 not only met Miss Burrows when she was willing to meet him but pestered her when she was unwilling to meet him, and indeed had come round to the house at which she lived with her mother on a number of occasions when he was unwelcome. He had been told by Miss Burrows' mother on 26th September 2004 that he was no longer welcome, that he was not to visit the premises and if he persisted in doing so when he was unwelcome she would seek legal advice and obtain an injunction. That gives an indication of the persistence with which the offender was clearly intent, even though unwelcomed, on seeking to see Miss Burrows.
5. In October the deceased arranged to see Miss Burrows. They met on the evening of 10th October and went back to his house for the night. In the early morning on 11th October the offender rang Miss Burrows, enquiring what she was doing. It is unclear precisely what stimulated him to do so. She told him that she was getting ready for work. In fact she was at the time still at the home of the deceased. She then left, driven by the deceased to her own home in Doncaster, so that she could in fact get ready for work.
6. Shortly before she was ready to go to work, the offender arrived at the house. He knocked loudly on the window of the kitchen, where he could clearly see Miss Burrows and the deceased. He shouted, "I want to talk to you". He clearly wanted to confront Miss Burrows, who anticipated trouble. When she went to the front door the offender said, "What are you sleeping with him for when you've been sleeping with me?" She told him to "Fuck off, you idiot" and shut the door. She finished changing, reassured the deceased, saying that that was how the offender regularly behaved and then as she was leaving, she was confronted again by the offender, who had remained outside the house. The deceased followed her. When he saw the deceased the offender said, "I'm going to fucking kill him". As they got to the gate, Miss Burrows told the offender to "go home". She described him as being agitated; but she did not consider that he was behaving in an unusual way. Clearly that was the way that he had behaved on other occasions in the past when feeling jealous. He came up to her aggressively; she pushed him away, telling him to "go home". He did not. He stepped forward and struck the deceased with a clenched fist. The blow landed on his neck. The deceased collapsed to the floor. Miss Burrows said, "Look what you've done. Just fuck off." The offender then left.
7. It became apparent that the deceased had been very seriously injured. The emergency services were called, but by the time the police arrived his breathing was compromised and by the time the ambulance personnel arrived it was too late to revive him. He was found to have suffered an extensive subarachnoid haemorrhage which had resulted from a ruptured vertebral artery in the left side of the neck. That was a desperately unlucky injury to have sustained. The evidence of the pathologist was to the effect that such an injury could be the result of a relatively minor blow.
8. When the offender was arrested that day, he was interviewed and said that his relationship with Miss Burrows had been a bit stormy. He knew that he had been banned from going to the house, but nonetheless he had become very angry about Miss Burrows and her relationships. As a result of that anger, he just swung at the deceased after he had come out of the house and hit him in the left side of the face. He was asked whether he had had any reason to hit the deceased. His answer was, "Not really no. I just swung - spur-of-the-moment thing. I only caught him with a few fingers ... on the left side of his neck." Later, "I didn't intend to hurt him. I didn't go round there to cause any trouble for anyone."
9. It was in those circumstances that he was charged with manslaughter. Ultimately, on 14th April 2005, about a month before the trial was due to take place, he pleaded guilty on the basis that he did not in fact make contact with the deceased when he aimed the blow. That wholly unrealistic basis of plea was unacceptable to the prosecution. Ultimately on 12th April, on the day that he was sentenced, he abandoned that basis of plea and was sentenced, as we have said, to two years' imprisonment.
10. The judge in sentencing him made it plain that he had considered with care a number of previous decisions of this court in relation what he described as "one punch manslaughter". He expressed the view that many would consider the authorities as setting a level of sentence which was very low, particularly looked at from the point of view of those directly affected by the death of the deceased. He accepted that, when the offender had said that he was going to kill the deceased, that was merely an angry and unconsidered remark; it was not an expression of true intent. He took into account the fact that, as is the case, the offender has two previous convictions for violence. The first was an offence of causing grievous bodily harm, for which he was sentenced in 1998 to 24 hours at an attendance centre; and then in 2000, for an assault occasioning actual bodily harm, he was ordered to be subject to a community service order of 80 hours. In addition to those convictions, the judge expressed the view that the evidence showed that the offender was unable to control his temper. The judge took into account that the pre-sentence report showed that the offender had, however, expressed real remorse for what had happened. He pointed out that the offender could not benefit from full credit for the plea of guilty that he had entered because of the lateness of that plea. In all the circumstances, he considered that two years was the appropriate sentence.
11. In his submissions before us today Mr Heywood on behalf of the Attorney General has submitted that that is an unduly lenient sentence. He refers us in particular to the aggravating features, namely the fact that the offender had attended at the home of Miss Burrows when he knew perfectly well that he had been told that he should not do so by Miss Burrows' mother; that he was intent on a confrontation with his girlfriend, and had persistently refused to leave despite being asked to do so; that the incident as it in fact happened was in the public view, in the sense that it was in view of all the neighbours. He submits that in all the circumstances, particularly bearing in mind the offender's previous convictions, the judge had failed to reflect adequately those matters in his sentence.
12. We have been referred to a number of previous decisions of this court. From these it is abundantly clear that sentencing in this area is notoriously difficult. The variety of circumstances which give rise to the death of a person resulting in a charge of involuntary manslaughter are infinitely various. In this particular case the judge was correct to take the view that the category within which this falls is that which he described as "one punch manslaughter". It is also one of those cases where there is no evidence that the punch itself was of such severity that the offender could have anticipated any serious harm to the victim. It is accordingly a tragedy to all concerned that the deceased unhappily suffered the injury from which he died. But, as Mr Heywood has pointed out, the fact that death has occurred is a critical factor which has to be taken into account by the court in determining the appropriate level of sentence.
13. In our judgment the judge's sentence falls outside the limits of what could be described as the appropriate level for sentencing, particularly bearing in mind this young man's previous convictions. We would have expected, after a late plea of guilty, a sentence of between three and five years to have been imposed. It follows that the sentence of two years' imprisonment must be categorised as unduly lenient. We have to consider in those circumstances what to do, bearing in mind the fact that this young man has had to face the prospect of being sentenced for this offence on a second occasion. Bearing in mind his youth, we consider that the interests of justice do not require us to increase the sentence. Accordingly, although, as we have said, we consider that the Attorney General was right to refer this sentence to this court as being unduly lenient, we do not propose to interfere with it.