Gerald Docherty v. Her Majesty's Advocate [2012] HCJAC 106

Criminal Note of Appeal Against Sentence:- On 19 January 2010 at the High Court in Glasgow the appellant was sentenced to an extended sentence of 10 years, comprising a custodial term of 7 years and 1 month and an extension period of 2 years and 11 months in relation to a charge of assault to severe injury and permanent disfigurement. The appellant pled guilty at the first preliminary hearing. The sentencing judge reported that the appellant could properly be described as “a man of violence” with an atrocious record for violence including previous analogous convictions on indictment and at the high court. The judge stated that, had it not been for the plea of guilty, he would have imposed a custodial term of 8 years so the reduction to 7 years and 1 month represented a discount of around 12%. Here the appellant appealed against his sentence only in relation to the question of the discount applied to the custodial term. It was submitted on behalf of the appellant that there was nothing about the case to indicate that that plea did not result in the utilitarian benefits that generally flow from a plea tendered at the first preliminary hearing stage and, referring to Gemmell v HMA 2012 SCCR 176, submitted that the discount applied here was insufficient. Here the court considered the circumstances the case to determine whether the discount often applied to pleas at that stage of around 25% ought to have been applied here.