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You are here: BAILII >> Databases >> England and Wales Court of Appeal (Criminal Division) Decisions >> Feve, R. v [2024] EWCA Crim 286 (14 March 2024) URL: http://www.bailii.org/ew/cases/EWCA/Crim/2024/286.html Cite as: [2024] WLR 3450, [2024] EWCA Crim 286, [2024] WLR(D) 204, [2024] 1 WLR 3450 |
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CRIMINAL DIVISION
REFERENCE BY THE ATTORNEY-GENERAL UNDER S.36 CRIMINAL JUSTICE ACT 1988
Strand London WC2A 2LL |
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B e f o r e :
LORD JUSTICE HOLROYDE
MR JUSTICE GOOSE
and
HIS HONOUR JUDGE LICKLEY KC
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REX | ||
- v - | ||
DARREN STANLEY FEVE |
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Lower Ground Floor, 46 Chancery Lane, London, WC2A 1JE
Tel No: 020 7404 1400; Email: [email protected]
(Official Shorthand Writers to the Court)
MR NICHOLAS de la POER KC appeared on behalf of the Offender
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Crown Copyright ©
THE VICE-PRESIDENT:
"... for the offence of perverting the course of public justice, the offence is so serious that only a custodial sentence can be justified. Taking into account all of the aggravating and mitigating factors, the least sentence that could be justified is one of 12 months. In accordance with the Custodial and Community Sentence Guidelines, I have to consider whether that sentence can be suspended. I am satisfied that you can be rehabilitated in the community and your risk can be managed in the community. An immediate custodial sentence would have a devastating effect upon you and your family. I am able to achieve appropriate punishment within the community, and so the sentence will be suspended for a period of 12 months. There will be 200 hours' unpaid work."
"... conduct which tends and is intended to pervert the course of justice strikes at the heart of the administration of justice and almost invariably calls for a custodial sentence. Deterrence is an important aim of sentencing in such cases, although, as was pointed out in Radcliffe, the necessary deterrence may sometimes be achieved by the imposition of an immediate custodial sentence without necessarily requiring a sentence of great length."
The court went on to say, at [20]:
"The Sentencing Council's Imposition Guideline specifically indicates that a factor indicating that it would not be appropriate to suspend a prison sentence is where appropriate punishment can only be achieved by immediate custody. That is so in this case. and will be so in most cases of attempting to pervert the course of public justice."
That decision of the court was cited in Attorney-General's Reference (R v Graham),
to which we have already referred. At [21] this court said:
"Overall the general trend of the authorities is that in cases of perverting the course of justice an immediate custodial sentence is almost invariably to be imposed. Although the language varies somewhat from case to case, that is the gist of all the authorities. Accordingly, there needs to be a high degree of exceptionality if an immediate custodial sentence is not to be imposed for such offending."
Those two cases, which predate the Perverting guideline, reflect the long-established principles that doing acts tending and intended to pervert the course of justice is by its nature always a very serious offence, and that the inherent seriousness of such conduct almost always requires an immediate custodial sentence. References to "exceptional circumstances", and cognate terms, are a convenient shorthand; but in our view they simply emphasise that there will be few cases in which the normal consequence of immediate custody can properly be avoided, and that very compelling reasons will be needed if immediate custody is to be avoided. We do not think it helpful to treat such references as imposing a separate legal test of exceptionality.
"… almost invariably an immediate custodial sentence should and will be imposed in cases of perverting the course of justice."