Armed Robbery: Sentencing Starting Point Reduced by Over 2 years
We represented N, who pleaded guilty to the ‘knifepoint’ robbery of a ring valued at £6,500 among other offences.
During examination of a set of rings for purchase at a high-end jewellers, N took one of the rings from its display pad and backed away from the shop counter, producing a knife from his waistband. The knife was brandished and he was said to have made threats to staff. The incident was captured on CCTV.
The prosecution argued that the robbery offence fell within the high culpability bracket because there was the production of a bladed article to threaten violence and that there was medium harm because of the psychological impact on the shop staff, which would have led to a starting point of five years’ imprisonment.
David Kitson, N’s solicitor advocate, successfully argued that the knife produced by N, being plastic, could not be considered to be a bladed article, and that the case therefore fell within the medium culpability bracket. He also submitted that there was no evidence of any harm being caused to the shop staff. The Judge accepted this argument as well and reduced the sentencing starting point from five years to two years ten months to take into account the totality of all the offences and N’s previous convictions. Mr Kitson was also able to secure 25% credit for N despite several previous failures of N to attend his plea hearing. The resulting sentence for the armed robbery offence was therefore reduced to just 26 months’ imprisonment.
This case was prepared by Amy Cox , assisted by Milly Blunt. The solicitor advocate was David Kitson, also from Sonn Macmillan Walker.
