Totality 18A

The court should first reach the appropriate sentence for the instant offences, taking into account totality in respect of the instant offences alone. The court then has a discretion whether to make further allowance to take into account the earlier sentence (whether or not that sentence has been served in full). The court should consider all the circumstances in deciding what, if any, impact the earlier sentence should have on the new sentence. It is not simply a matter of considering the overall sentence as though the previous court had been able to sentence all the offences and then deducting the earlier sentence from that figure.

A non-exhaustive list of circumstances could include:

1. how recently the earlier sentence had been imposed, taking account of the reason for the gap and the offender’s conduct in the interim
2. the similarity of the offences sentenced earlier to the instant offences
3. whether the offences sentenced earlier and instant offences overlapped in time
4. whether on a previous occasion the offender could have ‘cleaned the slate’ by bringing the instant offences to the police’s attention
5. whether taking the earlier sentences into account would give the offender an undeserved bonus – this will particularly be the case where a technical rule of sentencing has been avoided or where, for example, the court has been denied the opportunity to consider totality in terms of dangerousness
6. whether the instant offence qualifies for a mandatory minimum sentence
7. the offender’s age and health, and whether their health had significantly deteriorated
8. whether, if the earlier and instant sentences had been passed together as consecutive sentences, the overall sentence would have required downward adjustment to achieve a just and proportionate sentence.

If the offender is still subject to the previous sentence:

1. Where the offender is currently serving a custodial sentence for the offences sentenced earlier, consider whether the new sentence should be concurrent with or consecutive to that sentence taking into account the circumstances set out above and the general principles in this guideline.
2. Where the offender is serving an indeterminate sentence for the offences sentenced earlier, see also the guidance in the section ‘Indeterminate sentences’ below.
3. Where the offender has been released on licence or post sentence supervision from a custodial sentence for the offences sentenced earlier, a custodial sentence for the instant offences cannot run consecutively to that earlier sentence, including where the offender has been recalled to custody – see the relevant guidance in the section below ‘Existing determinate sentence, where determinate sentence to be passed’.