| Crime — Sentence — Time spent on remand — Court required to make specific order — Correction of errors — Powers of Criminal Courts (Sentencing) Act 2000, s 155 — Criminal Justice Act 2003, s 240
R v Gordon;
R v D;
R v Taylor;
R v Pusey;
R v Shaukat;
R v McManus [2007] EWCA Crim 165
CA: Sir Igor Judge P, Treacy J and Sir Michael Wright: 8 February 2007
The issue of time spent on remand had to be directly addressed at the sentence hearing. Once the court had decided that credit should be given it should say so and could then adjourn for appropriate information to be provided about the relevant number of days. The final decision should, save in exceptional circumstances, be concluded within 28 days but even if delayed beyond that period the Crown Court could deal with what was no more than the final implementation of its order since that would merely represent the conclusion of an adjourned part of the sentencing process and was not a variation or rescission of sentence.
The Court of Appeal (Criminal Division) so stated when (1) allowing an appeal by Gavin Stephen Gordon against a sentence of 18 months’ imprisonment imposed by Mr Recorder Mainds at Northampton Crown Court on his conviction of conspiracy to supply cannabis resin and ordered to run consecutively to the unexpired period of an earlier sentence; (2) ordering in the cases of (a) Mark William Taylor’s appeal against sentence imposed by Judge Adrian Smith at Manchester Crown Court that eight days spent on remand in custody should be taken into account; (b) D’s appeal against a minimum specified period to be served in relation to detention for public protection imposed by Judge Pardoe QC at Snaresbrook Crown Court that 322 days spent on remand should be taken into account; (c) Kevin Peter McManus’s appeal against sentence imposed by Mr Recorder Sanghera at Stafford Crown Court that 24 days spend on remained to be taken into account;(d) Mirza Hamayou Shaukat’s appeal against sentence imposed by Judge Boggis QC that 161 days spent on remand be taken into account; and (3) refusing Lloyd Aaron Pusey’s appeal against sentence imposed by Judge Campbell at Inner London Crown Court to credit a 20 day period spent on remand.
SIR IGOR JUDGE P, giving the judgment of the court, said that s 240 of the Criminal Justice Act 2003, which came into force on 4 April 2005, required the court positively to order that the days during which an offender was remanded in custody in connection with the offence or a related offence should count as part of the sentence. Without a specific order no deduction could be made. Under s 155 of the Powers of Criminal Courts (Sentencing) Act 2000 the Crown Court could vary or rescind the sentence provided the variation was made within 28 days of the day on which the sentence was imposed. Once the 28 day period had expired the power to vary or rescind a sentence imposed in the Crown Court expired. However, their Lordships had been encouraged by the commentary of Dr David Thomas in R v Norman [2006] Crim LR 1073 to consider R v Annesley [1976] 1 WLR 106 in relation to the Crown Court’s jurisdiction to adjourn part of the sentence and to re-examine Norman in the light of the Annesley principle. The starting point was that any mis-statement of the number of days credit to which a defendant was entitled would almost invariably be the product of administrative error. There was no reason why a judge could not use language making clear that he was directing that the defendant should receive credit for the full period of time spent in custody on remand but if the actual period stated proved to be based on an administrative error the court would order an amendment of the record to enable the correct period to be recorded. Approaching the problem in that way, the number of days to be credited might properly be regarded as a temporary rather than a final order and therefore open to correction if an error emerged and such arrangements would not fall foul of the 28 days rule. Nevertheless, save in very limited circumstances an extension of the 28 day period was impermissible. If the 28 day period allowed under s155 were extended to, say, 42 days, a number of appeals against sentence in particular could probably be dealt with by referring them back to the original Crown Court to correct an oversight. At present once the 28 day period allowed under s 155 had expired, such cases required the attention of the Court of Appeal, Criminal Division. That was not an appropriate use of limited resources.
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Appearances: Veronica Ramsden (Registrar of Criminal Appeals) for Gordon; Maria Savvides (Crown Prosecution Service, Northampton) for the Crown. Brenda Campbell (Registrar of Criminal Appeals) for D. Taylor, Pusey and Shaukat were not represented. Mark Ellison and Adrian Darbishire (Treasury Solicitor) as friends of the court.
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