Prosecution wins appeal against ‘lenient’ sentence

Wesley Guilbert will now serve four years in prison, having initially been sentenced to two years in prison, suspended for three years, with a three-year probation order.

Guilbert, 44, was before the Royal Court in June where he admitted two counts of supplying Ecstasy to others and possessing the drug along with morphine, both Class A substances. He also admitted possession of cannabis resin and offering to supply it.

In August the prosecution was granted leave to appeal against the sentence in the Guernsey Court of Appeal on grounds that it was too lenient.

It was only the third case of its kind to go before the Guernsey Court of Appeal since the Court of Appeal (Guernsey Law) was amended in February 2022, and the first matter to be upheld.

In the Royal Court, Judge Catherine Fooks had said that Guilbert could have had no complaint had he gone to prison for four years or more.

But the court had been struck by letters from his family and references, plus a probation report indicating that he had turned his life around.

Judge Fooks said that this would be his one and only chance. He could turn his back on a 30-year past blighted by illegal drugs and continue to enjoy his freedom but, should he re-offend, he could expect to spend ‘a long time’ in prison.

In the Court of Appeal, Advocate Liam Roffey argued that the Royal Court had set a starting point for sentence that was too low, given the defendant’s record, with five previous convictions for drug offences and being jailed for nine years in 2014 for being concerned in the production of a Class A drug. But he had not been in trouble since being released from prison in July 2022.

The Court of Appeal did not think that the starting point for sentence had been necessarily wrong, or that the one-third discount applied to it had been too great.

But the probation report was not unequivocal that the defendant was turning his life around. He was assessed as being at a high risk of reoffending. Mitigation of references and letters, some from his family, was described as ‘fairly slim’.

‘It is still unclear to us how the sentencing court could have arrived at a non-custodial disposal of the matter other than simply determining that it should do so irrespective of the sentencing guidelines,’ said Jersey Bailiff Timothy Le Cocq in delivering the Court of Appeal judgment.

For the removal of an immediate custodial sentence there needed to be cogent reasoning that a defendant had changed their long-established ways rather than a mere hope.

‘It is the absence of such justification and, indeed, no apparent justification on the material before it that this court can divine, in our judgment puts this sentence in to the realms of being unduly lenient.’