Thomas Laird v. Her Majesty’s Advocate [2015] HCJAC 90

Note of appeal against sentence:- On 2 June 2014, at Glasgow High Court, the appellant was convicted after trial of a number of charges relating to the physical and sexual abuse of 5 former partners over a period of 18 years including the repeated rape of two of the complainers and the rape of one of the other complainers. In relation to the rape charges (charges 22, 38 and 43) an Order for Lifelong Restriction was imposed with a punishment part set at 5 years on the basis that the judge would have imposed a sentence of 13 years, 3 of which would have been attributed to public protection. In relation to the remaining charges a determinate sentence of 10 years imprisonment was imposed on the common law charges (charges 5, 6, 7, 15, 37 and 42), in relation to a charges of contravening section 5 of the Sexual Offences (Scotland) Act 1976 (charge 2) he was sentenced to 3 years and in relation to a charge of contravening section 6 of the Criminal Law (Consolidation) (Scotland) Act 1995 (charge 8) he was sentenced to 6 years, all concurrent with the OLR. The appellant appealed against the imposition of the OLR aspect of the sentence. It was contended on behalf of the appellant that the imposition of an OLR was inappropriate and excessive. It was submitted that too much weight was attached to the opinion of Dr Baird who had been instructed by the appellant and who concluded by a narrow margin that the appellant met the definition of high risk. It was submitted that too little weight had been attached to the opinions of Dr Darjee and Mrs Ross who had different views to that of Dr Baird. Here the court refused the appeal. The court considered that the sentencing judge could not be criticised in the approach that was taken. The sentencing judge considered the case of Ferguson v HMA 2014 SCCR 244 and accepted that the terms of the Risk Assessment Report had to be taken into account, however, the critical question for the sentencer was whether the risk criteria had been met, namely, whether there was a likelihood that the offender if at liberty would seriously endanger the public. The court considered that the sentencing judge was entitled to hold that the risk criteria had been met albeit the RAR assessed the appellant as medium risk. The court stated that there was a basis for saying that Dr Darjee had underestimated the risk presented and that Dr Baird was correct to conclude that the appellant fell into the high risk category.