Faye Rolfe successful in the Court of Appeal

Faye Rolfe has successfully appealed an excessive sentence for the offence of going equipped for burglary.

The Defendant pleaded guilty at the first opportunity to possessing a razor blade, and having with him a set of ‘drop’ keys, Allen keys, fob keys, and numerous standard door keys. For going equipped he received a sentence of 21 months, far in excess of the upper range of the top category, 18 months, translating to a starting point only just below the maximum sentence of 3 years. A mandatory minimum sentence of 6 months for the blade was made to run concurrently.

The Court of Appeal found favour with submissions that the sentence of 21 months passed was more in line with cases of far greater sophistication than this one, involving keys providing access to hundreds of post boxes, cloned vehicle keys and key programmers, and that there had also been too great an upward adjustment made to reflect the defendant’s previous convictions.

The original sentence of 21 months for going equipped was reduced to one of 10 months. The sentence for the blade was corrected in line with the sentencing guidelines on mandatory minimum sentence to run concurrently, resulting in a total corrected sentence of 16 months.

Faye is regularly instructed to defend individuals facing allegations of dishonesty, violence, sexual offending and financial wrongdoing. Faye also prosecutes for the Crown Prosecution Service at grade 3 both alone and being led in cases concerning serious organised crime, and complex financial crime. She is able to provide representation and advice at every stage of a case, across the range of cases before the criminal courts and in regulatory matters. [Faye Rolfe Profile]

Faye was instructed by Phil Emery of Emery Halil & Brown Solicitors.