Mark Rimmell [2019] EWCA Crim 1370

The appellant pleaded guilty to three offences of burglary and was committed to the crown court for sentence, he was also in breach of a suspended sentence. He received 28 months’ imprisonment for each offence to be served concurrently and the suspended sentence was activated in part so that there was a consecutive term of 15 months.

The burglaries were non-domestic and committed in the hours of darkness and he had convictions including 20 offences of non-domestic burglary and 5 domestic. The offences were found to be in category 2 and the convictions sufficiently serious to justify increasing the starting point substantially above the upper limit.

Held: although there were aggravating features, they did not justify such a significant move beyond the top of the range. Each individually warranted a sentence toward the upper end of category 2, with totality taken into account the appropriate sentence for all the burglaries was 2 years, with full credit it reduced to 16 months, and this was the sentence substituted. The sentence in respect of the suspended sentence order remained unaltered.