Ryan Joshua Ball [2019] EWCA Crim 1260

Ryan Joshua Ball [2019] EWCA Crim 1260 concerned an appeal against sentence by the Court of Appeal, Criminal Division, which was allowed so as to increase the reduction for a guilty plea from one sixth to one quarter, reducing the total custodial term from twenty months to eighteen months.

The appellant had pleaded guilty to four counts of assault (including two counts of assault on an emergency worker contrary to the Assaults on Emergency Workers (Offences) Act 2018) and two counts of possession of a knife. He was sentenced by Recorder Boothby on 3 May 2019 to ten months’ imprisonment concurrent on each of the four assault counts and ten months’ imprisonment concurrent on each of the two possession counts, with the sentence for possession to run consecutively to the sentence for assault. The total sentence was therefore twenty months’ imprisonment.

On 16 March 2019 police were called to the rear of a pub in southeast London following reports of a man with two knives in his waistband. When the appellant was detained and searched, he put up violent resistance and in the ensuing struggle assaulted and injured four officers. PC Mady suffered an injury to her wrist caused by kicking. PC Stockdale was grabbed by the wrist, suffering reddening, localised pain, bruising and facial marking. PC Cupid was bitten by the appellant, though the bite did not break the skin. PC Webster was kicked approximately five times and sustained cuts and bruises to his knees. Two kitchen knives were found in a nearby letterbox.

The appellant appeared before Bromley Magistrates’ Court on 18 March 2019, declined jurisdiction, and the case was committed to Woolwich Crown Court with a plea and trial preparation hearing fixed for 15 April 2019. At that hearing discussions took place regarding the appellant’s pleas and the proposed basis of plea, but for technical reasons the appellant was unable to sign the basis of plea and the matter was adjourned to 23 April 2019. On that date the appellant attended and signed the proposed basis, but the Crown stated it had not reviewed the matter and sought a further short adjournment to finalise the indictment and consider the basis. The matter was adjourned to 29 April 2019. It was at that hearing that the appellant entered his guilty pleas, although insufficient court time meant sentence was adjourned until 3 May 2019. In passing sentence, the Recorder stated that he had reduced the total sentence by twenty per cent because the appellant had spared the court a trial.

The sole ground of appeal was that the twenty per cent reduction was incorrect and that the guidelines required a reduction of twenty-five per cent. Ms Smith for the appellant acknowledged that the appellant was not entitled to a one third discount because he did not enter his plea at the very earliest opportunity. She submitted, however, that a guilty plea was indicated at the very next hearing on 15 April 2019 and that the guidelines required only an indication, not an actual plea, for the reduction to apply.

The court held that the chronology demonstrated that the plea was indicated immediately after the first stage of the proceedings, namely at the plea and trial preparation hearing on 15 April 2019. In accordance with the guidelines, the reduction to be applied at that stage was twenty-five per cent. It might be that the judge considered that twenty-five per cent was inappropriate because of the delay in actually entering the plea, but nothing in the sentencing remarks indicated that that was the reason behind the twenty per cent reduction. The court emphasised that the guidelines were clear and required only an indication of plea for the appellant to be eligible for the reduction. If that indication was clear, then unless there were other reasons for not giving the reduction, the full discount of twenty-five per cent available at that stage should be applied.

The court noted that given the maximum sentences under the guidelines being considered by the judge were twelve months for each offence, by passing sentences of ten months’ imprisonment the judge had in fact applied a discount of only one sixth, or 16.7 per cent, and not twenty per cent as stated. The correct discount of twenty-five per cent would result in sentences of nine months for each offence with a total sentence of eighteen months. The court quashed the sentence of twenty months’ imprisonment and substituted a sentence of eighteen months’ imprisonment. In short, the appeal was allowed because the appellant was entitled to a twenty-five per cent reduction for indicating his guilty plea at the plea and trial preparation hearing, not the one sixth reduction in fact applied.