WARNING: reporting restrictions may apply to the contents transcribed in this document, particularly if the case concerned a sexual offence or involved a child. Reporting restrictions prohibit the publication of the applicable information to the public or any section of the public, in writing, in a broadcast or by means of the internet, including social media. Anyone who receives a copy of this transcript is responsible in law for making sure that applicable restrictions are not breached. A person who breaches a reporting restriction is liable to a fine and/or imprisonment. For guidance on whether reporting restrictions apply, and to what information, ask at the court office or take legal advice.This Transcript is Crown Copyright. It may not be reproduced in whole or in part other than in accordance with relevant licence or with the express consent of the Authority. All rights are reserved.[2026] EWCA Crim 1059Venue Royal Courts of JusticeStrandLondonWC2A 2LLDate Tuesday 28 July 2026
Before
LORD JUSTICE COULSONSIR ROBIN SPENCERRECORDER OF REDBRIDGE(HER HONOUR JUDGE ROSA DEAN)(Sitting as a Judge of the CACD)
Between
REXCrownV
Between
ASHLEY BURT__________Computer Aided Transcript of Epiq Europe Ltd,Lower Ground, 46 Chancery Lane, London WC2A 1JETel No: 020 7404 1400; Email: rcj@epiqglobal.co.uk (Official Shorthand Writers to the Court)_________MR D MAUNDER appeared for Appellant_________JUDGMENT
[1]The appellant is now 41. Having pleaded guilty on 17 January 2025 in the Crown Court at Bristol, he was sentenced by Mr Recorder Langdon KC ("the judge") to an extended determinate sentence of 8 years and 8 months for one offence of assault with intent to rob and one offence of having an article with a blade or point. The 8 years 8 months was made up of a custodial term of 4 years 8 months and an extended licence period of 4 years.[2]The appellant appeals against that sentence with leave of the Single Judge. The Appellant's Previous Convictions[3]Unusually perhaps, it is appropriate to start with a consideration of the appellant's previous convictions. They are extensive. He has 49 convictions for 95 offences over the 20 years between March 1999 and February 2019. These include 7 offences against the person, 24 offences against property, 30 theft and kindred offences and two offences relating to firearms or offensive weapons.[4]On 21 February 2019, again at Bristol Crown Court, the appellant was convicted of one offence of wounding with intent to do grievous bodily harm. He was sentenced to 12 years' imprisonment. On 22 August 2024, having served half the appropriate sentence for that offence of serious violence, the appellant was released on licence. The Facts of the Offending[5]Five days after his release from prison, at about 4.00 pm on 27 August 2024, the appellant entered Stokes Croft Pharmacy in Bristol and asked to speak to the pharmacist, a man called Philip Hunt. Mr Hunt was then 75. The appellant left after being told Mr Hunt was not free but he returned 15 minutes later and Mr Hunt agreed to provide a consultation.[6]In order to facilitate this, Mr Hunt moved from behind the counter to the customer area. When he did that the appellant grabbed him from behind and put a hypodermic needle to his neck. He told Mr Hunt that he would infect him with AIDS unless he was given methadone.[7]Fortunately another customer in the pharmacy immediately went outside and gathered together a group of workmen who were there. They went back into the pharmacy and asked the appellant if he had a problem. The appellant dropped the needle and left. The police were called and the appellant was identified from CCTV footage. He was arrested in the early hours of the following morning and refused to be interviewed.[8]The appellant did not plead guilty at the first opportunity but did plead guilty at the PTPH, thereby entitling him to a 25 per cent discount from the custodial sentence that was inevitably to be passed for his offending. The Sentencing Exercise[9]Having set out the facts of the offending, the judge said that, by reference to the applicable sentencing guidelines, this was an offence of high culpability (category A). That was, he said, because the use of the syringe with the needle was effectively the same thing as the production of a bladed article. As to harm, the judge had regard to the impact on Mr Hunt and concluded that the harm was in category 2 (being neither category 1, serious harm nor category 3, no significant harm). For such an offence the Sentencing Guidelines recommend a starting point of 5 years with a range of 4 to 8 years' custody.[10]The judge considered that there were two principal aggravating factors, namely the appellant's previous record and the fact that this offence was committed so soon after the appellant had been released from prison on licence. The judge rejected the suggestion that the appellant was remorseful and said that there was little by way of mitigation.[11]Taking all matters into account the judge took a notional starting point of 6½ years. Giving the appellant slightly more than 25 per cent credit for his plea, he reduced that to a custodial term of 4 years and 8 months. He went on then to consider whether or not the appellant was dangerousand concluded that he was. In consequence, he imposed an extended licence period of 4 years. We note that immediately the judge concluded his sentencing remarks the appellant said out loud:
"I will be appealing it"
. So here we are. The Grounds of Appeal[12]There are five grounds of appeal, although there is a good deal of overlap between them. First, it is said that the judge erred in his categorisation of the offence and therefore took too high a starting point. Secondly, it is said that the judge attached no weight to the mitigation, in particular the appellant's inability to obtain what he regarded as appropriate medication. Thirdly, it is said that the judge failed to have regard to the appellant's personal mitigation. Fourthly, it is said that insufficient weight was given to the mitigating factors of the offence in determining the extension period. Finally, it is said that there was no input from probation on the question of dangerousness.[13]We deal with those points under the following three headings: categorisation; mitigation and dangerousness.We are grateful to Mr Maunder for his oral submissions this morning, which were clear and tenacious. Categorisation[14]In our view, the judge was quite right to categorise this as an offence of high culpability and medium harm. As to culpability, Mr Maunder’s argument against this being in category A is that the guideline only refers to threatening with a bladed article and does not expressly refer to, for example, a needle. However, we regard that as an unrealistic and unworkable distinction. The guideline cannot set out every possible bladed article that might be used in a robbery. We agree with the judge that the use of a syringe and a hypodermic needle was plainly akin to a bladed article for the purposes of the Sentencing Guidelines: if used, both weapons cut into the flesh.[15]That is so, regardless of whether or not the syringe is clean and empty, just as it would not matter if the knife was clean. In any event, Mr Hunt was hardly in a position to undertake a detailed inspection of the weapon with which he was being threatened, and that was a point of which no doubt the appellant was aware. Moreover, it might be said that the threat of infection with AIDS is a specific aggravating factor peculiar to the use of a needle for this purpose, rather than a knife. In any event, we consider that in the round, this was plainly an offence of high culpability.[16]It is unnecessary to deal with harm in any detail because Mr Maunder realistically accepts that this was a category 2 harm. It would be unrealistic to suppose that a 75-year-old man would not suffer harm as a consequence of being threatened by a violent drug addict.[17]Accordingly we reject the suggestion that the judge erred when categorising this sentence by reference to the Guidelines. The notional sentence that the judge took of 6½ years was well within the recommended range for this offence. We consider that it takes into account such mitigation as there was. It also takes into account the two clearly aggravating features identified by the judge, namely the appellant's previous convictions and the circumstances of the offending, in particular the fact that it was carried out just five days after release. Mitigation[18]Mr Maunder made a number of submissions in support of the grounds that dealt with mitigation. We deal with them one by one. As we have said, we consider that the judge took into account such mitigation as there was, but we are inclined to agree with the judge that there was really very little mitigation in this case. We do not consider, for example, that the appellant's recent release from prison was a mitigating factor. Indeed the fact that he was taking drugs and prepared to threaten serious violence to a pharmacist within five days of release is, as we have said, plainly an aggravating factor.[19]Reliance is placed both in the written advice and in Mr Maunder’s oral submissions this morning on the fact that the appellant could not obtain the particular medication that he wanted. But it seems to us that there are two complete answers to that. First, the expert psychiatrist, Dr David Morton, states at paragraph 15.10 of his report that the medication that the appellant was given on release from prison "may not have been to his liking because it contained paracetamol but it was an equivalent dihydrocodeine he was already prescribed". So he was prescribed appropriate medication, and the fact that he did not like it was hardly a point in his favour.[20]Secondly, of course, even if there was something in that point and even if, as Mr Maunder described it, the attack on Mr Hunt could somehow be regarded as a cry for help, then, in our view, it still could not begin to excuse the threatening of a 75-year-old pharmacist with a needle said to be infected with AIDS. So we do not accept the submission that the specific circumstances of this offence give rise to any particular mitigation.[21]Finally, we do not consider that there is any significant personal mitigation. Mr Maunder's advice suggested that the appellant may have been suffering from some sort of psychiatric condition at the time of the offence and, as a result of that, the single judge ordered the report prepared by Mr Morton. But that report dated 15 June 2026 concluded that the appellant had no psychiatric defence available to him and that the appellant did not have an underlying psychotic illness. So the argument foreshadowed in the advice is simply not open to the appellant. It is plain that the appellant does have various neuro-diversity conditions, but it is impossible to link any of those to this particular offending, in particular given what the psychiatrist says in his report about the overshadowing of everything by the appellant's drug addiction.[22]Moreover there is a wider point about mitigation. As the judge said, the appellant was almost 40 at the time of sentence. He is no longer a young man. So familiar is the appellant now with the criminal justice system that the same points of mitigation on which he has relied again and again inevitably lose their force over the years: as the judge put it, "they cease to resonate". There comes a time when someone in the appellant's position, regardless of background, neuro-diversity issues and the rest, has to take at least a measure of responsibility for his actions. The appellant does not appear to accept any agency at all.[23]Finally, the judge said that there was no sign of remorse. We acknowledge that the appellant did write a letter to Mr Hunt, but the appellant's immediately truculent response at the end of the sentencing hearing rather suggests that the letter was a matter of form rather than substance.[24]For all those reasons, we reject the suggestion that there was any significant mitigation of any kind in this case. Any that there was can be seen to have been adequately reflected in the 6½ year notional sentence that the judge took before discount for plea. Given the previous convictions and given the circumstances of this offence, it might be said that, but for giving credit for some mitigation, the notional sentence could have been significantly higher. Dangerousness[25]It is certainly right that in most cases where dangerousness is to be assessed, a report from the Probation Service is required. However, as this Court made plain in R v MacDowall [2024] EWCA Crim 294, the test is one of necessity. If it was unnecessary to obtain such a report the judge was not obliged to do so (see the analysis at paragraphs 19 and 20 of the judgment in that case).[26]Concluding that a report is unnecessary is, we accept, a relatively high threshold. But in the present case we are in no doubt that it was crossed. A report from the Probation Service here as to the issue of the appellant's dangerousness was unnecessary; it would have been a waste of public money. The appellant is, on any view and by any metric, extremely dangerous. He committed this serious offence just five days after being released, having served half the sentence imposed on the previous occasion for a serious offence of violence. We consider that the appellant is and was dangerousand the judge required no additional reports to tell him so. It is plain that the public can only be properly protected from the appellant by the use of the extended licence mechanism.[27]That leaves the question of whether the 4 year extension period was manifestly excessive. Mr Maunder argued that the mitigating factors should have reduced the 4 year extension, but we have already rejected the submission that there were any significant mitigating factors. He also suggested that a truly dangerousman would have inflicted injury on Mr Hunt, so that should temper our view as to the level of threat posed by the appellant. But we disagree with that. The appellant did not get the opportunity to inflict injury or to decide to inflict injury on Mr Hunt because he was confronted by the group of workmen in the pharmacy and decided to flee. That is not a sign that the appellant is not very dangerous. We accept that 4 years is a long extension period, at least by reference to the custodial element of this sentence. But in the particular circumstances of this case we consider that it was justified. Disposal[28]Accordingly for the reasons we have set out, and despite Mr Maunder's clear submissions today, we reject the appellant's appeal against sentence.[29]MR MAUNDER: My Lord, thank you. I am just thinking aloud. Given that Mr Burt is not present, is there a provision the Court can send a copy of your Lordship's judgment to him in prison?
LORD JUSTICE COULSON: We can. It is available on the National Archive but I doubt Mr Burt would be granted access to the National Archive. In those particular circumstances I will leave a note to ensure that it is provided to Mr Burt.
[31]MR MAUNDER: I am grateful.
LORD JUSTICE COULSON: I will also ensure that you get a copy.
[33]MR MAUNDER: Thank you. Epiq Europe Ltd hereby certify that the above is an accurate and complete record of the proceedings or part thereof. Lower Ground Floor, 46 Chancery Lane, London, WC2A 1JE Tel No: 020 7404 1400 Email: Rcj@epiqglobal.co.uk