Rachel Smith [2019] EWCA Crim 1077

The Attorney General sought leave to challenge the sentence as unduly lenient which was granted. The offender was sentenced to 4 months imprisonment suspended for conveying a list A article into prison, an offence committed in breach of suspended sentence. That sentence had been imposed for assisting an offender, who was the person she was visiting when she was found with tobacco and Subutex in her bra.

The appropriate sentence would have been an immediate sentence of 4 months with a consecutive 4 months activated for the breach although a merciful judge may have made the sentences concurrent. The Court declined to interfere, however, due to the progress that the offender had made over a nine month period to “right herself”.