Weapon carried when entering premises - for consultation

Care should be taken to avoid double counting in these cases. If an offender commits an aggravated burglary with intent to steal/inflict GBH/ do criminal damage [a 9(1)(a) burglary], they commit the offence at the point of the trespass when they enter the building.  So for these offences, all aggravated burglaries would have the weapon present on entry.  For the aggravated version of s.9(1)(b) the offence is not committed until the point of the theft/attempted theft or GBH/attempt GBH and therefore the offender may have the weapon on entry or have picked it up in the address.  R v Sage (AG’s ref SAGE [2019] EWCA Crim 934, [2019] 2 Cr App R (S) 50) sets out that having a weapon present on entry is an essential element of an aggravated s.9(1)(a) offence and so care needs to be taken in s.9(1)(a) cases that the fact the offender has a weapon present on entry is not taken into account a second time.  In s9(1)(b) cases, however, the fact that the offender had taken a weapon to the premises, and was in possession of it when entering, will normally aggravate the offence (unless already taken into account at step 1).