R v Manjit Singh

(Draft for Approval) MRS JUSTICE JEFFORD:

1. On 10 January 2025, in the Crown Court at Southwark, the appellant (then aged 29) was convicted of manslaughter. He was acquitted of murder.

2. On 7 March 2025, before the same court, the appellant was sentenced. An extended sentence of 18 years was imposed pursuant to section 279 of the Sentencing Act 2020 comprised of a custodial term of 14 years and an extended licence period of 4 years.

3. The appellant appeals, with the leave of the single judge, against the finding of dangerousness and the imposition of an extended sentence. Leave to appeal against the custodial element of 14 years’ imprisonment was refused by the single judge. The appellant seeks to renew that application.

4. The facts of this matter are as follows. Shortly before midnight on 14 November 2023, the victim, Simarjeet Nangpal, who was 17 years old, drove with a group of men to Burket Close in Southall, Hounslow. The group consisted of at least fourteen men in five cars. The group had driven to Burket Close as a result of a dispute between one of Simarjeet Nangpal's friends and Amandeep Singh, the brother of the appellant.

5. The background to what happened in Burket Close was a dispute between, on the one hand, Damanjit Ahuja and Nirjeet Gulati, and, on the other, Haneet Singh, a friend of Amandeep’s. They took issue with Haneet's "speaking" to an ex-girlfriend of Damanjit. An incident took place on 8 or 9 November 2023, at a nightclub, where an altercation occurred between Damanjit and his group and Haneet and Amandeep. Threats were made to Haneet and reported to the police.

6. On 10 November 2023 there was a further incident at a market when Amandeep was assaulted by a group of men; his jacket containing his car keys was stolen (and those keys were later used on 14 November); and his turban was knocked from his head.

7. Over the following days Amandeep Singh was subjected to threatening phone calls which he had told the appellant about. At around the time of the calls on 13 November, two cars also turned up and circled outside the family home in Burket Close where Amandeep lived with his parents and brothers. The police were called and given the vehicle registration number of the cars outside the address. The police did not attend that night. Two officers attended the following day but no action was taken.

8. In summary, that was the background to what happened later on 14 November.

9. Much of what happened that night was captured on CCTV and the entire incident lasted a matter of minutes.

10. As the convoy of cars pulled up outside the appellant's house, the appellant ran out into the street, along with his brothers Amandeep and Ajmeer and his father Poran. The appellant, Amandeep Singh and Poran Singh were all carrying some type of weapon. The appellant had taken a kitchen knife with him.

11. Some of Simarjeet Nangpal's associates got out of their cars also carrying weapons. Simarjeet Nangpal’s car windscreen was smashed with a baseball bat and, in the ensuing violence, Poran Singh fell over and was hit by one of the group from Simarjeet Nangpal's car rendering him unconscious. Fighting continued and Simarjeet Nangpal threw Ajmeer Singh to the ground. The appellant appeared to thrust a knife at Simarjeet Nangpal causing him to look down. The appellant then repeatedly struck out at his victim with the knife and during that time the rest of the group either left in their cars or ran away on foot leaving Simarjeet Nangpal on his own.

12. In total the appellant stabbed Simarjeet Nangpal fourteen times to his back, front and both sides. Two of those stab wounds would have proved fatal on their own. The first of those wounds was a stab wound with a depth of 13cm which had gone through the left kidney terminating near the spine. The second of those potentially fatal wounds had a depth of 10cm and had penetrated beneath the diaphragm and into the left lobe of the liver. Simarjeet Nangpal was also beaten with a stick and a bat, and had been stomped on by the appellant, his brothers and father.

13. The appellant removed the knife from the scene before the police arrived, taking it back into the house, and in a subsequent interview denied having a knife or any weapon with him at the time of the offending.

14. Simarjeet Nangpal died at the scene.

15. We deal first with the custodial sentence of 14 years' imprisonment. As we have said, leave to appeal was refused. No notice of renewal was given in accordance with the Criminal Procedure Rules Part 36.5 and, in accordance with the Guide to Proceedings in the Court of Appeal Criminal Division at paragraph C.4.1, the renewal automatically lapsed. The court was however informed by email yesterday afternoon that counsel intended to renew the application. That failure to renew would be sufficient ground for the court to decline to hear the renewed application and refuse leave. But we have not done so. We have heard counsel on this ground — Mr George KC accepting that, so to speak, the buck stops with him — but we refuse leave on the merits in any event.

16. We do so for the following reasons. The appellant argues that the judge was wrong to place this offence in category A for the purposes of the Guideline. In his sentencing remarks the judge rightly identified that there were two category B factors present: an intention to cause harm falling just short of serious bodily harm and a high risk of death or really serious injury that ought to have been obvious to the appellant. As the judge said, those two factors were demonstrated by the fact that the kitchen knife was a dangerous weapon; it was used, on the appellant's own evidence, to target parts of the body to inflict sufficient harm to stop Simarjeet from moving and to keep him on the ground; and similarly the number of wounds inflicted was indicative of those factors. As the Crown has submitted, it was the extremity of those factors that the judge took into account.

17. We should add that the number of wounds is indicative of the nature of the assault and its persistence, and not, as Mr George sought to argue, an element of self-defence with no intent. Nor is there anything in the jury's verdicts that supports the submission that the jury must have accepted “an element of self-defence” whatever that may mean. That is not a conclusion that can be drawn from the acquittal of the other defendants on murder and manslaughter as they faced trial as secondary parties and the issues in respect of them were necessarily different from those concerning the appellant.

18. In his sentencing remarks the judge said this: "This was a prolonged and repeated attack lasting over a period of minutes, involving 14 separate stab wounds for Simarjeet’s back, front and to both his sides. It continued when Simarjeet was isolated, alone, abandoned by the group, defenceless in the onslaught of you, your two brothers and later your father."

19. We do not consider that the judge's categorisation of the offence was wrong and the starting point was then a sentence of 18 years' imprisonment.

20. Mr George for the appellant places reliance on the background to this offence, going back to the terrifying experiences of the appellant's family in Afghanistan which it is not necessary to set out in detail but which included the loss of a family member whose fate remains unknown. This experience informed, he submits, their reactions and their fears to what then happened to them in November 2023. Further he emphasises the appellant's good character. Having come to the United Kingdom, the family worked hard to build a business and the appellant himself, at a young age, worked hard in that business, living an exemplary life focused on his family. He has by all accounts continued to behave impeccably and positively in prison.

21. However, all that has to be set against the fact that the appellant chose to leave the house and confront the group that had come to Burket Close. He did so armed with a knife. He repeatedly stabbed someone unarmed and isolated and he carried on the assault gratuitously.

22. The judge further identified as aggravating factors that the appellant did not seek medical assistance for Simarjeet and removed the knife. Mr George has argued that taking the knife back into the house is not disposing of the weapon and not an aggravating factor, but he accepts that the appellant lied about this in interview which in our view is part of an attempt to hide what had happened.

23. It is quite clear from the sentence that he passed that the judge gave very substantial credit for mitigation, and weighing all the mitigating and aggravating factors it cannot be said that the custodial term of 14 years was manifestly excessive.

24. Ground 2, on which leave was given, challenges the judge's finding of dangerousness. The matters relating to the appellant's previous good character and the circumstances of the offence are again relied upon. In short, the nature of the appellant's submission is that this was an isolated incident, wholly out of character, and committed out of fear for his family in quite extreme circumstances where members of the family had been threatened over a period of days. It was not, it is submitted, evidence of dangerousness and could not be regarded as such. It is submitted on behalf of the appellant that it would require, in effect, a recurrence of virtually the same factual scenario for there to be any significant risk or even realistic risk of any further serious offending.

25. It is important that the judge had heard all the evidence at trial and was best placed to make the assessment of dangerousness, and we pay due regard to that and place significant weight on it. In reaching his conclusion as to dangerousness he said this: "I am satisfied that you do present such a risk [that is the significant risk referred to in section 308 of the Sentencing Act 2020] to the public. Although the Offender Group Reconviction Score outcome set out in the pre-sentence report suggests you present a low risk of committing a further serious offence, the author of the report believes that the risk you pose is greater than that suggested given the nature of your offending and your use of a knife in it. I agree with that assessment. The actuarial assessment is not borne out by the facts of this case. You picked up a knife on impulse and took it out into the street where you directly confronted the group outside. You immediately went on the attack. You confronted Nirjeet with the knife, stabbing him three times before turning on Simarjeet, stabbing him 14 times. You remain under the illusion that what you did was in self-defence. It was not, as the jury found. In maintaining that position, you have not accepted full responsibility for your actions. It is for all those reasons I take the view that you pose a high risk of harm to the public and I find you dangerous within the meaning of Section 308 of the 2020 Act."

26. A number of criticisms are made of that assessment on behalf of the appellant. In relation to those, we say, firstly, that it is clear that the judge formed his own assessment which was not dependent on the pre-sentence report. Various criticisms are made of the pre-sentence report being prepared on a false premise – in particular Mr George points to the specific example of a reference in the pre-sentence report to the offence being planned. Even if there are such flaws in the pre-sentence report, they are irrelevant. It is clear, taking that example, that the judge was not misled. He positively found the lack of premeditation to be a mitigating factor. But in any event and overall, he formed his own assessment and was not inappropriately influenced by the pre-sentence report.

27. Secondly, it is submitted that it should not be held against the appellant that he continued to be, as the judge put it, under the illusion that what he did was in self-defence. Mr George emphasises that by that the appellant does not mean that he acted in self-defence in the legal sense of the term which would have amounted to a defence, but rather that he was acting in defence of his family in the face of a serious perceived threat which had a background in the threats to which they had been subjected for a number of days.

28. The judge was plainly entitled to find that what the appellant did in leaving the house armed with a knife was the action of an aggressor. As he said, it was not necessary for the appellant to arm himself with a knife to remonstrate with the group outside the house. But we consider it of real importance that the circumstances were extreme ones. They caused a young man who had previously caused no-one any harm to do something wholly out of character for fear of what might happen to his family. That has to be set against the background of what had happened to them in Afghanistan, what they had been subjected to for no reason over the past few days, and the lack of effective response when they had informed the police.

29. Thirdly, the appellant argues that the judge was wrong to take into account any injuries sustained by Nirjeet Gulati. The judge said that he was sure that the appellant had also stabbed Nirjeet Gulati three times and that this was something he could properly take into account in assessing dangerousness. It is not in dispute that this was something that had not been raised in submissions or prior to sentence being passed. It is argued for the appellant that the evidence on these injuries was not sufficient for the judge properly to be sure that the appellant caused such injuries or even that Nirjeet Gulati had been stabbed, and Mr George points out that the jury was invited to consider this as evidence relevant to intent on the count of murder, a count on which the appellant was acquitted. In any event it is submitted that it was unfair for the judge to rely on this matter when it had not been previously raised.

30. It would clearly have been preferable for this issue to be ventilated with counsel prior to sentence being passed, not least for the reasons Mr George has given. Indeed, that ought to have been done if the judge intended to rely on it. It was a matter on which he was entitled to reach a decision on the facts, taking account of the CCTV footage and the evidence of the injuries even if they were contentious. His decision was not inconsistent with the jury's verdict. It was an aspect of the evidence put to the jury as relevant to intent but only an aspect. But the judge ought to have given counsel an opportunity to address him in circumstances in which this was not an issue raised in written or oral submissions. Whilst the judge is required to take account of all the information available to him, he ought to have raised what was plainly a contentious issue before doing so. However, having said all of that, we do not consider this to be a central point in the finding of dangerousness. We regard it as something of a red herring and it is not the basis for our decision.

31. This court will always be reluctant to interfere with the assessment of the trial judge on dangerousness, but, in this case, we have concluded that we should do so. Although the judge identified the matters on which he relied, we do not consider that he gave sufficient weight to the unusual and extreme circumstances of this offence and in which this appellant of previously exemplary character found himself.

32. We have refused leave to appeal on ground 1 but we allow the appeal on ground

2. We quash the finding of dangerousness and the extended sentence which was imposed in consequence, and we substitute a determinate sentence of 14 years' imprisonment. Epiq Europe Ltd hereby certify that the above is an accurate and complete record of the proceedings or part thereof. Lower Ground Floor, 46 Chancery Lane, London, WC2A 1JE Tel No: 020 7404 1400 Email: [email protected]