Liam Waugh [2019] EWCA Crim 1502

Liam Joseph Waugh [2019] EWCA Crim 1502 was a renewed application for leave to appeal against sentence dismissed by the Court of Appeal (Lord Justice Holroyde, Mr Justice Goss and Mr Justice Knowles).

The applicant had pleaded guilty at the Crown Court at Bristol on 31 August 2018 to two offences of arson and three offences of driving whilst disqualified. He was sentenced to a total of three years and eight months’ imprisonment, comprising consecutive sentences of 19 months’ imprisonment on each arson count and two months’ consecutive on each driving whilst disqualified count. He was also disqualified from driving for five years, extended by three months under section 35A of the Road Traffic Offenders Act 1988 and uplifted by 19 months under section 35B.

On the night of 8 to 9 August 2017, Mr Waugh drove whilst disqualified on three separate occasions in the course of committing two arsons. He had made a reconnaissance trip the previous evening, again driving whilst disqualified. He travelled first to Morris the Barber on Bath Road in Saltford, where he started a fire using accelerant inserted through the letterbox. The emergency services were alerted at 1.29 am and discovered fire between the external door and internal roller shutters. He then travelled to Cork Place in Bath, where he committed an identical offence at Just Good Tattoos. The emergency services were alerted at 2.58 am to find the inner door on fire. The motive for the offences was unknown. The damage to Just Good Tattoos was in the region of £39,000, although insurance and local crowd-funding eased the financial burden. There were residential flats above and next to the second premises. Victim personal statements referred to anxiety and fear generated by the fire-raising. The judge described the offences as serious, causing enormous disruption, heartache and financial loss. A co-accused, Michael Warman, was convicted of one arson and possessing a disguised firearm and received two years and nine months’ imprisonment.

Mr Waugh, aged 30 at the time of the appeal, had previous convictions for robbery in 2007 and 2010, for which he received five years’ detention and six years’ imprisonment respectively, and for possession of a knife in a public place and dangerous driving in 2010. In 2012 he received a consecutive 14 months’ imprisonment for wounding. The judge treated these convictions as an aggravating factor. No pre-sentence report had been obtained.

The sole ground advanced by Mr Tucker on the renewed application was that the overall sentence, by reason of its compilation, was manifestly excessive. It was contended that it was wrong to make all sentences consecutive when they formed part of a single series of offences.

The court rejected the submission. Mr Justice Goss, giving the judgment of the court, held that the sentence in its end result was not arguably manifestly excessive. It afforded appropriate credit for the guilty pleas and properly reflected the totality of Mr Waugh’s offending, both in terms of culpability aggravated by his previous offending and the harm caused. The court acknowledged that although the offences were part of a series, they were all committed for a purpose: Mr Waugh was driving whilst disqualified in order to commit the crimes of arson. In their combination, the offences merited a significant custodial sentence. The court was satisfied that no pre-sentence report was then or was now necessary. In short, the application for leave to appeal was refused, the total sentence of three years and eight months’ imprisonment being neither arguably manifestly excessive nor wrongly structured.