The Court of Appeal dismissed the Director of Public Prosecutions’ application to review as unduly lenient a five-year prison sentence imposed on C.G. for making a threat to kill his daughter, K. The court said the sentence was lenient, but not so far outside the proper range that it justified intervention under section 2 of the Criminal Justice Act 1993.
C.G. pleaded guilty to four counts arising from events in February 2014: assault causing harm to K, assault causing harm to her older sister, C.A., making a threat to K, and possessing a firearm without a certificate. The sentencing judge imposed terms of four, three, five and four years respectively. The DPP’s review initially challenged the sentences for the threat and firearm offences, but withdrew the challenge to the firearm sentence at the appeal hearing. The Court of Appeal considered only the five-year term for the threat offence.
The judgment described C.G. assaulting K at her home and later at his home, where he threatened to kill her and used a handgun during the incident. K suffered extensive physical injuries, spent a week in hospital and used crutches for four months. The court also recorded the effects on both daughters described in victim impact reports.
The DPP argued that the threat sentence should have been higher, or partly consecutive to the other sentences, given the sustained violence, the girls’ ages and their relationship to C.G. The defence said the sentences were within the appropriate range and that consecutive sentencing was not warranted.
The Court of Appeal said the sentencing judge had considered whether to impose a consecutive term and was entitled to decide against it. It accepted that the threat offence was at the highest range and called for a substantial sentence. The judges said they might have imposed a longer term themselves, but disagreement with a sentence was not enough to establish undue leniency.
The court also considered mitigation, including C.G.’s guilty plea and engagement with counselling and residential treatment. It concluded that, although the sentence was undoubtedly lenient, it remained within the discretion allowed to the sentencing judge. The application was dismissed; the five-year sentence was not quashed or replaced.