R v McCoy

The case of R v McCoy involved an applicant who pleaded guilty to serious assault of a police officer, dangerous operation of a vehicle with the circumstance of aggravation that she was adversely affected by alcohol, unlicensed driving and leaving the scene of an accident in which a person had been injured. The applicant was a passenger in a vehicle that pulled over on the side of the road in response to a direction from a police officer. She swapped seats with her partner, the driver, and continued driving towards the police officer, who suffered a dislocated and broken right shoulder and was unable to return to work for a month. The applicant contended that she believed the police officer was directing her to leave the scene when she unintentionally struck him and that she left the scene knowing she had struck him. The trial judge found that the applicant’s actions in striking the police officer were deliberate to enable her to leave the scene and avoid arrest. The applicant was sentenced to two and a half years imprisonment suspended after 13 months.

The legal issues the court was required to decide were whether the sentence was manifestly excessive or inadequate, and whether the applicant’s guilty plea and remorse were sufficiently considered by the trial judge. The applicant submitted that the judge gave insufficient weight to her guilty plea and remorse and placed too much weight on the fact that she contested the factual basis of her sentence. She offered to plead guilty to these charges at an early stage, prior to the presentment of the indictment. Further, she had not previously been sentenced to a term of imprisonment. She tendered a letter of apology to the complainant. The judge overlooked that she was acting in a state of panic under pressure from her partner.

The court reasoned that the applicant’s conduct, whilst intoxicated, in deliberately driving dangerously at a police officer acting in the execution of his duty, was most serious. It caused the police officer significant injury but had the potential to cause even more serious injury or even death. It warranted a significant penalty to deter her and others from such gravely anti-social behaviour. The judge was entitled to be circumspect about the depth of her subsequent remorse given her leaving the scene without concern for the police officer’s welfare and her unpromising insistence on contesting the factual basis of her plea of guilty. That said, there were mitigating features. Despite her criminal and traffic history, she had never before been sentenced to a term of imprisonment. She did plead guilty at an early stage. She had dependent children for whom her imprisonment will be difficult. In light of the increase in the maximum penalty to seven years imprisonment for the offence of serious assault, the cases to which the applicant has referred this Court do not demonstrate that the effective sentence of two and a half years imprisonment with an operational period of four years, suspended after 13 months, for the totality of the applicant’s offending, was manifestly excessive. The fact that a different judge may have imposed a slightly lesser head sentence suspended at the one third point is of no assistance to the applicant. The application for leave to appeal against sentence was refused.

ORDERS:
The application for leave to appeal against sentence is refused.