The 12 Oxford defendants before the Court of Appeal in 2021

A total of 10 people sentenced at Oxford Crown Court took the their convictions or sentences to the London court.

Two others - child rapist Anthony Pitts and illicit lover Jordon Brook - were pulled before the senior judges as government lawyers thought their sentences were unduly lenient.

Rape plot lawyer’s life term overturned

A lawyer who hatched a ‘Fatal Attraction’ style plot to get back at a former lover had her life sentence overturned.

Anisah Ahmed was the first person ever to be given life for perverting the course of justice earlier this year.

She repeatedly made up lies about Iqbal Mohammed and even roped in her ex-boyfriend Mustafa Hussain as she invented claims that the married barrister had raped, stabbed and tried to kidnap her.

Sentencing her to life and ordering she serve at least four-and-a-half years behind bars, Judge Michael Gledhill QC described Ahmed’s actions as ‘malicious, even evil’. He recognised life sentences were a last resort but concluded there was a high risk she would commit serious offences and that risk could not be managed with a stringent restraining order.

 

 

Overturning the life sentence and replacing it with a 10 year jail term and indefinite restraining order, Mr Justice Knowles acknowledged the ‘difficult task’ faced by Judge Gledhill in the ‘unusual case’.

But the court concluded that there had not been enough information for him to conclude that Ahmed was a ‘serious danger’ to the public forever.

Ahmed’s attempts to falsify evidence to frame Mr Mohammed were called ‘calculated, sophisticated, sustained and repeated’.

“It is quite clear that the Appellant was intent on destroying her victim’s life, and she came close to doing so,” Mr Justice Knowles said.

However, he added that, although the offending justified a ‘long sentence’, she had not committed a serious violent or sexual offence that – according to a landmark 1997 appeal case – might attract a life sentence.

READ MORE: ‘Evil’ barrister will no longer serve life behind bars

Paedophile grooming gang in front of judges

Grooming gang member Naim Khan, who plied an Oxford schoolgirl with cannabis and booze during a ‘campaign of rape’ had three years wiped from his 24 year jail sentence.

Together with other men, he was said to have treated the girl - who was in her early teens when the abuse was carried out between 1999 and 2001 - as a ‘commodity’. He had waited for her at the school gates, gave her alcohol and drugs and pimped her to others.

 

 

Lawyers for the east Oxford man took the case to the Court of Appeal, saying the sentencing judge had only paid ‘lip service’ to the fact Khan had been jailed for six years in 2016 for grooming other girls. By imposing a 24 year term in 2020 it meant Khan was in effect jailed for 30 years, which was said to be manifestly excessive.

Lord Justice Bean said there was ‘force’ in the argument put forward by brief Tracy Ayling QC.

“Khan’s offending, although very serious, would not have attracted a total sentence as long as 30 years had all the matters been dealt with at the same time. We think that the total sentence, which would have been imposed in that event would have been of the order of 27 years,” he said.

The panel of three appeal judges reduced the sentence imposed in 2020 from 24 years to 21 years.

A co-defendant, Mohammed Nazir, 46, was refused permission to appeal his 20 year sentence for rape, indecent assault and cannabis supply.

READ MORE: Grooming gang member who preyed on Oxford schoolgirl wins shorter sentence

‘Frenzied attack on wife’

Builder Mark Lally was jailed for life in August 2020 for attempting to murder his wife in a ‘frenzied’ attack that saw him stab her up to 11 times.

Sentencing him to life imprisonment in August last year with a minimum tariff of 11 years’ imprisonment, Judge Peter Ross said: "It's a minor miracle that she was not left paralysed. You rained down the most savage of blows."

But this July, the Court of Appeal overturned that sentence – instead replacing it with a 24 year extended sentence comprised of 20 years’ imprisonment and an extended four year licence period.

 

 

Lady Justice Simler described the attack as a very serious stabbing with lasting consequences for the victim. But she added: “Life sentences are not always called for in stabbings, even stabbings of this kind.

“The circumstances here were very particular to the fraught situation that existed between this couple and the domestic violence, whilst totally unacceptable, was not at the level often seen by this court in escalating violence cases.”

The effect of the Court of Appeal’s decision will be that Lally serves longer behind bars. Under Judge Ross’s sentence, he’d have had to do 11 years inside. However, he’ll now have to serve at least two-thirds of his 20 year jail term before he is eligible for release on licence.

READ MORE: Man who stabbed wife 'up to 11 times' has life sentence overturned (but he'll serve longer in jail)

The teen killers who tried to flee to Amsterdam

Taison Cyrille and Brookton Lagan failed to convince the Court of Appeal that their convictions for murdering dad-of-three Darren MacCormick were unsafe.

The two men were just 19 when they were given life sentences last Christmas for stabbing Mr MacCormick to death in January 2020.

The 19-year-olds were convicted of murder by jurors at Oxford Crown Court, with Judge Ian Pringle QC ordering they serve a minimum of 19 years behind bars before being released on licence.

Mr MacCormick died when he was stabbed through the lung during an argument in the early hours of January 9 last year. The argument had its origins in drug dealing.

The killers were arrested on January 10 at Luton Airport as they tried to board a plane to Amsterdam.

Taking the case to the Court of Appeal in November, lawyers for the pair claimed that the judge at their trial in Oxford Crown Court last year should have offered jurors the chance to consider alternative charges of manslaughter and wounding.

 

 

Dismissing the appeal, Lady Justice Macur said: "We find nothing wrong with the manner in which the judge summed up the case to the jury.

"We find nothing wrong in his declining to leave the alternative counts to the jury.

"And we do not consider that this appeal raises any questions as to the safety of the convictions.”

READ MORE: Didcot murderers' appeal to overturn life sentences thrown out by Court of Appeal

Drug dealer's sentence not excessive

A County Lines drug dealer’s attempt to persuade the Court of Appeal that his seven year sentence was ‘manifestly excessive’ failed.

Dismissing the appeal, Mr Justice Fraser said County Lines drug dealing not only ‘spread misery and damage to the health and lives of the users’ but also ‘inevitably’ led to prison sentences.

Lawyers for Nicco Pascal, 28, argued that the ‘third strike’ drug dealer, who pleaded after his first hearing at the crown court but before the trial, should have been given more than 10 per cent off his jail time.

 

 

Typically, repeat drug dealers looking at the mandatory minimum sentence of seven years could expect a 20 per cent reduction for an early guilty plea, with 10 per cent usually reserved for those who plead on the day of their trial.

Pascal was jailed for seven years and three months by Judge Michael Gledhill QC earlier this year for dealing drugs in west Oxfordshire – and pushing a police officer backwards and running away when he was stopped behind the wheel.

READ MORE: Drug dealer's appeal to reduce 7 year sentence REFUSED

Illegal relationship with underage girl

A two year suspended sentence given to a man who had a sexual relationship with an underage girl was upheld by the Court of Appeal.

Jordon Brook’s sentence was referred to the higher court by the Attorney General, a top government lawyer, who feared it was ‘unduly lenient’.

Over around 18 months, Brook – who was 19 when he began seeing the teenager – regularly had sex with his victim. He maintained the relationship despite being given a child abduction warning notice by the police.

 

 

The justices refused the appeal, with Lord Justice Males telling the court it could not be said the decision to suspend the sentence was wrong in principle.

He said: “We would not endorse all of the reasoning by which the judge reached his conclusion and it may be another judge would have imposed another sentence of immediate custody.”

Unlike Judge Daly, the appeal judges took the view it was not a case where there had been grooming, nor was there a ‘significant disparity’ between the ages of Brook and his victim.

However, they said a sexually explicit video of the couple had been recorded – according to his victim at Brook’s request - and sent to him. Explicit photographs were also passed between the couple. The video had not been shared or kept.

READ MORE: London judges uphold suspended sentence for man who had sex with underage girl

Rapist's sentence upped to 18 years

Child rapist Anthony Pitts, 39, had his jail sentence upped from 12 years to 18.

The Attorney General, who referred the sentence to the Court of Appeal as unduly lenient, said the 12-year term imposed on three counts of rape on one of his victims did not reflect the severity of Pitts’ offending and he should have imposed consecutive jail time for the assaults on his second victim.

The appeal judges agreed, keeping the 12 year term imposed for the rape charges but added another six years for assaults against a second child.

Lord Justice Males told the court: “In short we agree with the submissions made on behalf of the Solicitor General that the overall sentence imposed by the judge did not reflect the totality of this offending.

 

 

“For all the reasons to which we have referred in recording those submissions made by Catherine Pattison for the Solicitor General, a sentence of 12 years overall in these circumstances was simply too short to reflect this offending against two victims over a lengthy period with the consequences for them and the damage inflicted on them during the years which have followed that offending.

“We acknowledge the offender’s personal difficulties, his emotional immaturity and his psychological difficulties set out in the report and emphasised by Mr Easthope [his barrister] on his behalf.

“But, nevertheless, we have no doubts that the sentence here was unduly lenient. In our judgement the appropriate overall sentence in this case would have been one of 18 years’ imprisonment.”

READ MORE: Child rapist has six years added to jail sentence by Court of Appeal

Lab technician's suspended sentence overturned

A suspended sentence for an Oxford Biomedica lab technician who stole left-over product was overturned on appeal.

Conor Quinn, 32, received a 12 month suspended sentence in July for pocketing the 500ml bottle during a shift at the firm’s Oxfordshire offices in June 2019.

A nominal value of £50,000 was put on the stolen ‘viral vector’, calculated by dividing the value of the overall batch by the number of bottles that were filled.

 

 

However, lawyers for Quinn, of Vineyard, Abingdon, said that the financial value was nil – as the liquid was waste left over from the bigger batch and would have been destroyed had the technician not taken the bottle.

Granting the appeal, Mr Justice Turner agreed that the custodial sentence was excessive and in the circumstances of the ‘most unusual’ case Quinn’s 12 month suspended sentence could be reduced to a community order.

READ MORE: Oxford Biomedica thief, 32, who stole cancer drug from work sees his sentence reduced

Child rapist's 14 year term

Bertalan Oszlanszki, now 28, failed in his bid to overturn a lengthy sentence for raping a child.

The Kidlington man was jailed for 14-and-a-half years at Oxford Crown Court last year for raping a child under-13.

 

 

It followed a conviction the previous year for a string of sexual offences against an underage girl with whom he was in an illicit relationship.

The panel of three appeal judges, sitting at the Royal Courts of Justice in London, dismissed claims the sentence was manifestly excessive.

READ MORE: Paedophile's appeal to reduce sentence REJECTED

Postmistress vindicated

Former Cowley Road postmistress Kashmir Gill was one of scores of Post Office workers who had fraud convictions overturned this year.

In 2010, she admitted two counts of false accounting at Oxford Crown Court relating to £57,000 that Post Office Limited alleged was missing. She agreed to pay that sum and was fined £485.

Her case was one of dozens linked to the discredited Horizon computer system, which created errors in the accounts that made it looked like postmasters and postmistresses were stealing money when they were not.

 

 

In April, her convictions were quashed by the Court of Appeal. In his judgement, Lord Justice Holroyde recorded that the Post Office Limited accepted Ms Gill’s prosecution was unfair. He added: “We are bound to conclude that her prosecution was in addition an affront to justice. The public interest requires us to mark this latter conclusion.”

READ MORE: 'The Post Office ruined my life and took our savings – now, at least, we have justice'

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