R v Connor Mears [2025] EWCA Crim 515

[2025] EWCA Crim 515Venue Royal Courts of Justice, Strand, London, WC2A 2LLDate 8 April 2025
Before
LORD JUSTICE STUART-SMITHMR JUSTICE BRYANHIS HONOUR JUDGE MANSELL KC(Sitting as a Judge of the CACD)
Between
REXCrown-v-
Between
CONNOR MEARS__________NON-COUNSEL APPLICATION_________Approved Judgment
[1]On 9 October 2023, having pleaded guilty before the Wirral Magistrates’ Court, the applicant (who was then aged 28) was committed for sentence pursuant to section 20 of the Sentencing Act 2020 for offences of failing to stop after an accident and driving a vehicle whilst unfit through drugs. On 3 January 2024, in the Crown Court at Liverpool before HHJ Flewitt KC, the applicant (who was then aged 28) pleaded guilty to two further offences and was sentenced as follows: i) On count 1, which was an offence of causing death by dangerous driving contrary to section 1 of the Road Traffic Act 1988, on his plea of guilty, he was sentenced to 12 years’ imprisonment. ii) On count 2, which was an offence of causing death by driving whilst uninsured contrary to section 3ZB of the Road Traffic Act 1988, on his plea of guilty, he was sentenced to 16 months’ imprisonment concurrent and his licence was endorsed. iii) For offence 1 of the offences committed by the Wirral Magistrates’ Court, which was an offence of failing to stop after an accident, contrary to section 170(4) of the Road Traffic Act 1988, upon his plea of guilty, he was sentenced to 4 months’ imprisonment concurrent and his licence endorsed. iv) On offence 2, which was an offence of driving a vehicle whilst unfit through drugs contrary to section 4(1) of the Road Traffic Act 1988, upon his plea of guilty, he was sentenced to 4 months’ imprisonment and his licence endorsed. The total sentence was therefore one of 12 years’ imprisonment. In addition, the applicant was disqualified from driving for a total period of 18 years.[2]He now renews his application for leave to appeal against sentence, permission having been refused by the Single Judge. The Facts[3]On 7 October 2023, a rough sleeper, Mr Robert Williams, had been lying on a bench in the Strand in Liverpool just after 1.00 am. After what he said was a five-day bender of driving and taking crack cocaine, the applicant was driving an Audi TT sports car with one passenger, for which the applicant was not insured, and was trying to evade a pursuing police car. The applicant lost control of the Audi, which then struck another vehicle with such force that it mounted the pavement and struck the bench upon which Robert Williams had been lying. Mr Williams died from his injuries in hospital some 11 days later. During the pursuit of the applicant’s car the police vehicle had been travelling at speeds of up to 90 miles per hour (in order to keep up with the applicant’s vehicle) in a 40 mile per hour zone. During the pursuit the applicant had slowed down, changed lanes and contravened a red traffic light signal when pedestrians had been crossing the road, which is what had caused the pursuit to commence.[4]Witnesses described the applicant’s vehicle losing control before hitting the second car, which then came off the road and onto the pavement before hitting the wood and metal on the bench which Mr Williams had been lying on. The bench was ripped from its fixings. The second vehicle then collided with and snapped two saplings before coming to a halt.[5]Mr Williams was taken to the Walton Neurological Centre where he was pronounced dead on 18 October 2023. The driver of the second car had to be cut from the roof of his car and was taken to hospital, where he had been provided with pain relief. The following evening the applicant attended Royal Liverpool Hospital, stating that he had been involved in an accident the previous evening and had seen the news and was scared. The applicant agreed that the police should be called and police officers subsequently attended and arrested the applicant for the index offences.[6]In interview the applicant stated that due to being high on drugs he could only recall hitting something and then running away. When the applicant had seen reports of the incident, he had been remorseful for what he had done. Antecedents[7]The applicant was not a person of previous good character but his six convictions were for unrelated offences between 2014 and 2023. The judge did not treat his convictions as materially aggravating features. The Sentencing Remarks[8]In carefully structured sentencing remarks

the judge outlined the facts and then said:

“I have considered with care the sentencing council guideline that came into effect on 1st July last year, there is no dispute that this is a category A case, with a starting point of 12 years’ imprisonment and a range of between eight and 18 years’ imprisonment. There are a number of high culpability factors, this must have been a deliberate decision to ignore the rules of the road and to show disregard for the risk of danger to others. It was a prolonged, persistent, and deliberate course of dangerous driving. It was driving when highly impaired by the consumption of alcohol and/or drugs as you admitted at various times during your process through the system. It was an offence committed in the course of evading the police and you were driving at a speed significantly in excess of the speed limit. Those multiple high culpability factors require an upward adjustment to the starting point but I recognise that there is some overlap between those factors and I shall of course take care to avoid double counting. There are in addition aggravating features. I do not treat your previous convictions as an aggravating feature of this particular offending. There are no motoring offences. The relevance of your record is that you cannot be described as a man of good character. Your victim was a vulnerable road user, there was injury albeit not serious to [the driver of the second car] and I have already described the effect of this incident on him. There was a great risk of injury to the passenger in your own vehicle, although happily that did not come to pass. You committed other driving offences, driving without insurance and of course failing to stop after the accident, those are all significant aggravating features that require a further upward adjustment. So far as mitigation is concerned you are not a particularly young man and there is no mitigation here in my judgment to be derived from your age or any lack of maturity. I recognise the difficult upbringing that you have had and the chaotic lifestyle that you have led since your return from Australia. You attended hospital but you suffered no significant injury and there is no medical evidence to suggest that you did. You did of course surrender to the police but you only did so after some delay and at a time the effect of which was to thwart any attempt by them to gauge the amount of alcohol or drugs in your system. ... In reality there is little mitigation in this case of any significance apart from your pleas of guilty. Those pleas of guilty were entered or indicated at the first available opportunity and they do therefore in my judgment merit a discount of one third off the sentence that would otherwise be appropriate in this case.”
[9]Having formed the view that it was not necessary to impose an extended sentence because of the length of the prison sentence and subsequent disqualification that he was obliged to impose, the judge concluded that an appropriate aggregate sentence after a trial would have been 18 years, which he reduced to 12 years to reflect the applicant’s early guilty plea. The Application[10]The advice and grounds settled by counsel submit that the judge took too high a starting point and failed to take into account any personal circumstances relating to the applicant.[11]Refusing leave the Single

Judge said:

“I have considered the papers in your case and your grounds of appeal. For the reasons the Judge explained to you in his sentencing remarks, this was a very serious offence of causing death by dangerous driving. The number of high culpability factors identified by the judge merited a significant uplift form the Guideline starting point, and the victim being a vulnerable road user and your committing the other driving offences further aggravated its seriousness. The mitigating factors, as the Judge rightly explained, could carry little weight in the circumstances. He had regard to totality and gave you full credit for your early guilty pleas. It is not arguable that the sentence of 12 years’ imprisonment was outside the range of appropriate sentences.”
[12]Having considered all the material in the case, we agree with the Single Judge for the reasons he gave. The Single Judge’s reasons essentially endorse the reasoning of the sentencing judge which we consider to be beyond criticism. The combination of prolonged drinking and taking crack cocaine, combined with the facts of the applicant’s driving and the commission of multiple offences in addition to the killing of Mr Williams, render this aggregate sentence entirely appropriate. It is not reasonably arguable that the sentence is manifestly excessive. The renewed application is therefore dismissed.[13]In these circumstances, we do not consider it is in the interests of justice to review the steps taken by the court below to impose periods of disqualification in respect of count 2 and offence 2, since they are rendered academic by the disqualification correctly imposed on count 1.