No: 201104216/A8
Neutral Citation Number: [2011] EWCA Crim 2268
IN THE COURT OF APPEAL
CRIMINAL DIVISION 
Royal Courts of Justice
Strand
London, WC2A 2LL 
 
Thursday, 15th September 2011
 
B e f o r e:
MR JUSTICE WILKIE 
MR JUSTICE HOLROYDE 
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R E G I N A 

v 

MOHAMMED KHALIR RAHIMI
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Miss C Jones appeared on behalf of the Appellant
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J U D G M E N T
1.	MR JUSTICE WILKIE:  The appellant, Mohammed Khalir Rahimi, aged 25, appeals against the sentence imposed on him on 7th July 2011 by leave of the single judge.  On 4th July in the Crown Court at Liverpool, he pleaded guilty to a single count of doing an act tending and intended to perverse the course of public justice and three days later, on 7th July, he was sentenced to 16 months' imprisonment, with a direction that 98 days should count towards sentence, being time spent on remand in custody pursuant to section 240 of the Criminal Justice Act 2003.
2.	The underlying facts were that on 26th March 2011 the appellant's brother was arrested on suspicion of raping a former partner who suffered a range of serious disabilities.  His brother spent most of the day in custody before being released late in the evening.
3.	On the evening of 29th March the appellant went to the home of W, the mother of the complainant, saying that he had come to talk to her.  The appellant said that he loved her and he loved the complainant.  He apologised for not bringing something for a child who was in the house but then he said: "I can't live with losing my brother for 10 years, you must drop the charges and get [J] to drop the charges.  I'll give you all the money you would spent on a solicitor." W said that matters were being dealt with through the proper channels and asked why would she need his money.  The appellant said: "You need to understand that men make mistakes" and emphasised how good his brother had been to the family.  The appellant pressed W further to try to get her to drop the charges and she said that she would not.  He asked her if there had been any forensic enquiries and whether any DNA had been found in the bedroom.  He became angry before leaving the scene.  
4.	He was arrested a short time later and made wide‑ranging admissions in interview but denied that his brother had put him up to it.
5.	The appellant is a man of previous good character.  There was a pre‑sentence report which explained that he accepted minimal responsibility for the offence, suggesting that the victim may have had a hidden agenda in seeking to prosecute his brother, he was a person who ran his own take‑away business which would suffer whilst he was in prison.  The report acknowledged that the court would be inevitably considering custody.
6.	In order to assist the learned sentencing judge, reference was made to a number of cases concerning sentences for the same offence in different circumstances, and we will return to those in due course.  The learned judge in sentencing the appellant said that he understood that his brother had been accused of an extraordinarily serious offence, obviously exacerbated by the fact of the alleged victim being disabled.  He had gone to try to persuade the family of the complainant that they should drop the case.  He offered them money and had emotionally blackmailed them.  The learned judge made it clear that he accepted that there was nothing more than emotional blackmail and that the appellant committed the offence out of misguided loyalty and that he admitted to it fully to the police and pleaded guilty to the charge at the first possible moment.  Nonetheless, the offence was so serious that if he had pleaded not guilty the sentence would have been one of 2 years and giving him maximum credit the sentence of 16 months was passed.
7.	In full and helpful grounds of appeal, Miss Jones has referred the court to a number of cases which were also referred to by the judge.  In particular, the case of R v Riley (1990) 12 Cr App R(S) 410, where a guilty plea had been entered to a count of perverting the course of justice.  The appellant's nephew was awaiting trial on a charge of rape.  She approached the complainant, it appears to have been accepted, as a result of a chance meeting and suggested that the complainant should not give evidence against her nephew.  The offender had made an implied threat of violence.  In that case a sentence of 3 years was reduced to 15 months on appeal.  In the case of R v Philpott (1990) 12 Cr App R(S) 406, a young woman was convicted of perverting the course of justice and assault occasioning actual bodily harm.  She was living with a man who was waiting trial for assault.  She approached a witness and told her that the man was visiting all the witnesses in the trial, one of whom had already been injured and then kicked the witness in the face.  She was sentenced to 15 months for the offence of perverting the course of justice and 3 months concurrently for the assault.  The appeal against sentence was dismissed.
8.	Reference is also made to another case, R v Narinder Singh 1992 13 Cr App R(S) 123, but it is accepted that is included simply to inform the court of the range of sentences available and it is not suggested that that is a particularly apposite or helpful case.
9.	In addressing us orally today Miss Jones informed us of a matter which was not referred to in the pre‑sentence report, nor was it something which was addressed orally before the learned judge.  That is the Home Office policy that there is an automatic serving of a notice of deportation in respect of any person, a foreign national, who receives a sentence of 12 months or more imprisonment.  We are told that the appellant has been living in this country for some 6 years and has built‑up his own take‑away business, which is suffering as a result of his imprisonment.  But more particularly, that he has been served with a notice of deportation in accordance with the Home Office policy.
10.	Plainly that is a matter of relevance and no doubt the sentencing judge would have been assisted had reference been made to it.  But of course it is not the role of this court, and it would be quite wrong of this court, to substitute for a proper sentence a sentence which was unduly lenient simply in order to effect a certain outcome in relation to the immigration status of an offender, however meritorious his argument for being allowed to remain in this country might be.  Essentially those are matters which have to be canvassed between him and the Home Office if they issue a notice of deportation.
11.	We have considered carefully the authorities cited to us.  They are, of course, not guideline cases and each case turns on its own facts.  But we are particularly assisted by the case of Riley.  Although Miss Jones says that Riley can be distinguished from the present case because in that, there was an implied threat of violence.  On the other hand the offence in the present case which underlay the appellant's attempt to pervert the course of justice was significantly more serious than the one in Riley because of the nature of the victim and, unlike in Riley, the court in this case proceeded on the basis that this was a deliberate and premeditated approach.  Although there was no threat of violence, there undoubtedly was a bribe offered and degree of emotional blackmail brought to bear.
12.	In our judgment, the learned sentencing judge, in starting with a sentence of 2 years, which she reduced to 16 months in order to give full credit for an early guilty plea, imposed a sentence which was of a similar length to the sentence which the Court of Appeal substituted the case of Riley, in a case which was very similar to the present one. In our judgment, therefore, it cannot be said that the sentence imposed in this case of 16 months was manifestly excessive.  In our judgment, the learned judge, having helpfully been assisted by the relevant authorities being drawn to her attention, paid due heed to them and passed a sentence which was consistent with them.  It therefore follows that, although it may appear to the appellant to be severe, and though it may have unlooked for serious consequences in terms of his immigration status, it would be wholly inappropriate for us to interfere with a sentence which, in our view, is not manifestly excessive simply in order to assist him in that other matter.
13.	Accordingly, notwithstanding the fluent and able submissions made to us by Miss Jones, both in writing and orally, this appeal must be dismissed.