R v Harry Jones
[2023] EWCA Crim 1443
R v Ibraheem Anwar
18 June 2024
[2024] EWCA Crim 744
Court of Appeal
A man ran over a teenager accidentally after a fight. The judge gave him a lighter sentence than the prosecutor wanted, saying it wasn't planned and the teenager recovered quickly. The appeals court agreed, saying the judge made a reasonable decision even though the sentence was light.
Key Facts
- •Ibraheem Anwar (23) convicted of causing grievous bodily harm with intent and dangerous driving.
- •Sentenced to 30 months for GBH with intent (concurrent 18 months for dangerous driving).
- •Offence involved driving a car over a 14-year-old boy (A.) who had stumbled into the road.
- •A. suffered lung damage, spleen laceration, and pelvic fracture, but made a good recovery.
- •Anwar claimed he panicked after an altercation where a phone was stolen.
- •Judge categorized the offence as 3B (culpability B, harm 3), resulting in a 30-month sentence.
- •Solicitor General referred the sentence as unduly lenient.
Legal Principles
A sentence is unduly lenient if it falls outside the range a judge could reasonably consider appropriate.
Attorney General's Reference No 4 of 1989 [1990] 1 WLR 41
Sentencing is an art, not a science; the trial judge's assessment of competing factors should be respected unless irrational.
Attorney General's Reference No 4 of 1989 [1990] 1 WLR 41
Use of a vehicle to cause injury usually constitutes a highly dangerous weapon, unless the circumstances are unusual.
Hearn [2022] EWCA Crim 1535, Forrest [2022] EWCA Crim 1715
For GBH with intent, harm categorization considers the severity and duration of injury; lasting harm is not a precondition for 'grave' injury.
Williams [2018] EWCA Crim 740, Sentencing Council Definitive Guideline (2021)
Outcomes
Appeal refused; sentence not unduly lenient.
The judge's categorization of the offence, while lenient, was not unreasonable. The court accepted the judge's assessment that the car wasn't a highly dangerous weapon in these specific circumstances (spur of the moment, no prior intent to use as a weapon). The assessment of harm was also deemed permissible.