Tag Archives: sexual offence




Attorney-General’s References

The Attorney-General, following (reportedly) around 150 complaints (including from the Shadow Attorney General, Emily Thornberry MP) has referred the case to the Court of Appeal as he considers that the sentence is unduly lenient.

An Att-Gen’s reference is essentially a prosecution appeal against sentence. An overview can be found here. The Court of Appeal, sitting at the Royal Courts of Justice, Court 5, will be led by the outgoing (as in he is retiring, not that he is friendly and confident) Lord Chief Justice, Lady Just Rafferty (a former Chairman of the Criminal Bar Association) and Mrs Justice Macur (who has been promoted to the Court of Appeal, as a Lady Justice, but is yet to take up that appointment).

They will consider whether the 15 month sentence handed down by HHJ Russell QC at Preston was outside the range of sentences the judge could have considered reasonably appropriate when considering all of the relevant factors. Attorney-General’s references are designed to correct gross errors as opposed to replacing a sentence which is a little lenient, or different in nature to the one the Court of Appeal have in mind.

Stuart Hall






An explanation of the sentence – and why the court are constrained by the maximum sentences of the 1960s can be seen here and here.

The outcome

The Court of Appeal increased the sentence, saying that the breach of trust seriously aggravated the offences (as did his pronouncement of denials of any wrongdoing on the steps of the Court, which the Court seemed to think was an attempt to influence a potential jury)

As a result, the sentence as a whole was not just merciful or lenient, but was unduly so. The Court doubled the sentence to 30 months. This is a significant increase (equating to a starting point of a sentence of 3½ years after trial, allowing for an element of double jeopardy.


To my mind, the sentence wasn’t unduly lenient when balancing all of the factors, such as his pleas, his age, the maximum sentences at the time and the guidance given by the Court of Appeal in the guideline case of R v H.

However, that said, there has been an awful lot of media pressure and public anger about the sentence and so I wasn’t surprised that the sentence is increased slightly. It was certainly not a severe sentence and so it is probably within the scope of the court to increase the sentence if they feel the judge did not properly assess the offences correctly. An increase to 30 months is a bigger increase than was expected.

Here is a link to a press release by the firm representing some of Stuart Hall’s victims detailing the reaction of one of the victims to the increase in sentence.