Man who robbed Aberdeen shop given extended sentence after Crown appeal against original three-year prison term

About this case:

• Citation:
  [2025] HCJAC 19
• Judgment:
  External link
• Court:
  Appeal Court of the High Court of Justiciary
• Judge:
  Lord Beckett

John Gallagher was given an in cumulo sentence of three years and four months’ imprisonment for offences of assault and robbery and possession of a knife in a public place. The Crown position was that the sentencing judge ought to have imposed an extended sentence, and more generally challenged the sentence on grounds of undue leniency.

The appeal was heard by the Lord Justice Clerk, Lord Beckett, with Lord Doherty and Lord Matthews. Mohammed KC, advocate depute, appeared for the Crown, and Loosemore, advocate, for the respondent.

No longer felt safe

The respondent appeared on petition at Aberdeen Sheriff Court on 2 April 2024, and again on a second petition on 3 July 2024. In November 2024 he pled guilty to three charges for which the in cumulo sentence was imposed, the second two aggravated by being committed whilst on bail.

The details of the robbery charge were that, at a time when there were no customers in the shop, the respondent entered a convenience store on Urquhart Road, Aberdeen, brandished a knife with an 18cm blade at the complainer Angnes Sivakumar and, when she did not open the till, forced his way into the counter area and stole £350 worth of cigarettes.

Around three minutes after he entered the shop he left and ran into two police officers on patrol nearby who came upon the crime by chance. The respondent, who had previously committed offences of assault, shoplifting and hamesucken since moving to Scotland from Liverpool, admitted to the reporting social worker that he had taken crack cocaine before the commission of the offence.

For the Crown it was submitted that the sentencing judge failed to reflect the gravity of the crimes, particularly the robbery. The respondent was masked; the knife was thrust towards the shopkeeper and he made repeated threats; there was a struggle in a confined space behind the counter during a sustained incident lasting about 3 minutes. The impact on the victim, who no longer felt safe working in the evening and decided to sell her shop, was considerable despite the absence of physical injury.

Counsel for the respondent submitted that the Crown had failed to identify any reported case demonstrating that this was an unduly lenient sentence. The court should not increase the prison term merely to permit the imposition of an extended sentence.

Exploited vulnerability

Delivering the opinion of the court, Lord Beckett said of the details of the offending: “The sentencing judge concluded that the respondent did not intend to strike the shopkeeper with the knife, his intention being to scare her. He was entitled to reach that conclusion, but its potential to mitigate is very limited in this case. He noted the absence of injury, presumably a reference to physical injury. He reports that the complainer gave up the shop. Whether he had in mind previous convictions in Scotland or all of them, he was conspicuously generous in reporting that the respondent’s convictions are mostly minor.”

He continued: “That the respondent appeared to the judge to be genuinely remorseful carried limited mitigating weight in light of his criminal record and the whole circumstances of this pre-meditated crime. It is difficult to find mitigating weight, as the judge did, in the respondent’s lack of success. It was not the result of any restraint on his part but of the shopkeeper’s resolute resistance.”

Considering the appropriate sentence for the respondent’s conduct, Lord Beckett said: “The respondent robbed a shop in which a woman worked alone, providing a valuable public amenity. Such a person can be vulnerable to the kind of attack featuring in this case. The respondent chose a time when there was no customer in the shop in order to exploit her vulnerability. The courts must do what they can to deter such offending. Shop staff and other workers who provide services or amenities to the public must be protected from someone such as the respondent who decided to rob a shop, armed himself, donned a mask and sought to terrorise a shop-worker with a large and dangerous knife.”

He concluded: “The respondent has an extensive criminal record including comparable offending. He was subject to a community payback order when he committed this crime, breaking bail conditions as he has previously done on numerous occasions. The reporting social worker highlighted the need for post-release supervision in order to protect the public from harm. When regard is had to all relevant circumstances, we consider that the sentencing judge erred in his assessment of the gravity of charges 3 and 4.”

The court therefore imposed an extended sentence of 8 years with a custodial term of 5 years, reduced from 10 years and 6 months on account of the respondent’s guilty plea.