COURT: I do not propose to keep you in suspense. You are going to prison for 5 years and 4 months. When I have left court, your lawyers will explain to you when you are likely to be released from prison, bearing in mind the rules about remission of sentence and the length of time you have been in custody.
You have to be sentenced for one offence of robbery and one of attempted robbery. The offences occurred within about six hours of each other, one of them being shortly after midnight. Your victims in both cases were taxi drivers. In both cases you pointed a cutter at their neck. In the robbery which was the first in time, the taxi driver gave you $1,500 before you fled the scene. In the attempted robbery, the taxi driver picked up an iron pole he had with him, presumably just for this eventuality, and hit your arm with it, as a result of which you decided not to continue with your plan, and you ran off.
It has been said many times that taxi drivers, especially those who ply their trade at night or in the early hours of the morning, or who pick up or drop off fares in isolated spots, are particularly vulnerable to robbery. The courts should do what they can to protect them. That is why as long ago as 1993, the Court of Appeal said that whatever had been the position in the past, in future sentences of 7 years’ imprisonment for defendants who are convicted of this kind of robbery, by which I mean the robbery of a taxi driver, indeed the kind of robbery which occurred in this case, would be justified.
However, that case had two aggravating features which do not exist in your case. There were three robbers in all in that case, and a measure of violence, albeit modest, was used: one of them pulled the driver’s hair. Like the robbers in that case, you pointed a sharp object at the drivers’ neck, but you were alone and no actual violence was used. It was only threatened.
Your counsel suggests that the appropriate starting point for each of these robberies should be 5 years’ imprisonment. A sentence of that length has been held to be appropriate for robberies of taxi drivers where no weapon was displayed. You displayed a cutter to both taxi drivers which you pointed at their neck. In my opinion, the appropriate starting point for each robbery should be 6 years’ imprisonment, and since the robberies took place at different times and involved different victims, your offences at first sight call for consecutive sentences.
However, I must bear in mind the principle of totality which requires me to stand back and check that the overall sentence is not disproportionate to the totality of your offending. Although your offences occurred at different times, they both occurred on the same night. Something must have happened to trigger behaviour on your part which was so out of character, the only previous times when you got into trouble being two convictions for illegal gambling over nine years ago when you were in your early twenties and for which you received modest fines.
I have concluded that your offending on the night in question merits an overall starting point of 8 years’ imprisonment. You are entitled, of course, to have your sentence reduced by one-third because of your pleas of guilty on the return date when you were committed to the High Court for sentence. It is for these reasons that I take 5 years and 4 months’ imprisonment as the appropriate overall sentence in your case.
On each of these charges, the sentence which I pass is one of 4 years’ imprisonment. They will be served concurrently with each other, though 1 year and 4 months of the term on the 2nd charge will be served consecutively to the term of 4 years’ imprisonment on the 1st charge. That makes 5 years and 4 months’ imprisonment in all.