R v Jack Westlake

Theprovisions of the Sexual Offences (Amendment) Act 1992 apply to these offences. Under those provisions, where a sexual offence has been committed against a person, no matter relating to that person shall, during that person's lifetime, be included in any publication if it is likely to lead members of the public to identify that person as the victim of that offence. This prohibition applies unless waived or lifted in accordance with section 3 of the Act. We shall refer to the five victims in this case as V1, V2, V3, V4 and V5.

This is an application by His Majesty's Solicitor General for leave to refer a sentence under section 36 of the Criminal Justice Act 1988 ("the 1988 Act") which she considers to be unduly lenient.

The respondent Jack Westlake is now aged 21, having been born in September 2004.

On 16 May 2025 in the Crown Court at Plymouth after a trial before His Honour Judge Linford KC and a jury, the offender, then aged 20, was convicted of the following offences under indictment number 50EL0403524 (indictment 1): two offences of sexual activity with a child, counts 1 and 2; two offences of breach of a sexual risk order, counts 3 and 4, and one offence of failure to comply with notification requirements, count 5.

On 13 October 2025 in the Crown Court at Plymouth after a trial before His Honour Judge Turner and a jury, the offender, then aged 21, was convicted of the following offences under joinder indictment 50EL0397023/50EL0414324 (indictment 2): three offences of assault by penetration, counts 1, 2 and 4; two offences of rape, counts 3 and 9 and four offences of sexual activity with a child, counts 5, 6, 7 and 8.

On 28 November 2025 and at a subsequent slip rule hearing on 22 January 2026, the offender, then aged 21, was sentenced to a total of nine years' imprisonment comprising a sentence of three years and six months on count 3 (indictment 2) rape, and five years six months consecutive on count 9 (indictment 2) rape. There were concurrent sentences of two years each on counts 1, 2, 4, 6 and 7 on indictment 2, assault by penetration and sexual activity with a child, and a sentence of three years on count 8 (indictment 2), sexual activity with a child. Concurrent sentences of eight months' detention were passed on counts 1 and 2 on indictment 1, sexual activity with a child, and sentences of eight months, four months and one month respectively on counts 3, 4 and 5 on indictment 1, breach of a sexual risk order and failure to comply with notification requirements. There were the usual orders for notification and automatic barring. The surcharge was imposed in the appropriate sum.

We can take the facts, which are agreed, from the Reference. The offender was between 16 and 17 years old during the offending period for indictment 2 and 20 years old at the time of the offences on indictment 1. He was 20 years old when convicted on indictment 1 and 21 years old when convicted on indictment 2. He was 21 years old at sentence. He had no previous convictions or cautions recorded against him.

We set out the details of each offence below but in summary, during a period between 26 January 2021 and 14 November 2024, the offender committed a total of 14 offences. Eleven offences were contact sexual offences committed against five different victims, each aged between 13 and 14 years old at the time. Two of the victims were raped and most of the offences were penetrative in nature. One victim fell pregnant and had to have a termination. The offender was aged 16 to 20 during this period. The remaining three offences related to the offender breaching his sexual risk order and notification requirements.

During the Covid lockdown the offender found V1 online via social media. He contacted her, quickly sent her messages intending to flatter her and turned the conversation to sexual matters. V1 told the offender that she was 13 years old early on in their communications. This did not deter him from sending her overtly sexualised messages. He convinced V1 to meet with him.

At their first meeting the offender behaved in a manner consistent with a young teen, they kissed and hugged but nothing further took place. On their second meeting the offender digitally penetrated V1's vagina against her will twice before scaring her into leaving by telling her that he wanted to have sex with her. Undeterred by her protestations and in saying that she did not have any contraception, the offender suggested V1 lay down on the alleyway floor. V1 then managed to extract herself from his company by pretending her mother was contacting her. V1 was only in contact with the offender for about a week overall but in that time his actions changed her from a bubbly, chatty, confident 13-year-old to one fraught with anxiety. She saw him once more after the offending but took friends with her. V1 managed to cut contact with the offender, who had tried to maintain contact despite being warned to stay away from her by an older friend of her brother. V1 made it clear that he should leave her alone.

Not long after V1 made it clear that she did not want any further contact with him in the summer of 2021, the offender contacted V2, again via social media. The offender was originally in a group chat but began to message V2 privately. In these messages the offender told V2 he was 15, so he appeared to be closer to her age than he was. He was almost 17 at the time. The offender persuaded V2 that they were dating and they met and kissed a few times. V2 said that their kiss was nothing serious as far as she was concerned. It had only constituted a peck on the cheek between them but it soon became clear to her that he was not content just with that.

On 26 August 2021 the offender persuaded V2 to meet him privately in a field. They lay next to each other and the offender got on top of V2, under the guise of play-fighting. Once he was on top of her, holding her down, he digitally penetrated her vagina against her will and then he raped her. The offender stopped midway through, probably because someone walked past. This enabled V2 to get up and away from him by pretending that her mother had contacted her.

In the minutes after she escaped, the offender messaged V2 threatening to throw himself off a bridge. This probably helped to ensure that V2 did not speak up and enabled him to keep in contact with her over the following days, until she realised that he was getting close to other girls as well. V2 reported the rape in March 2022.

That same summer the offender had also targeted V3 through social media. She was the younger friend of a mutual friend and within a day of speaking to her online he was asking to meet with her. V3 was vulnerable for several reasons, not just her age but she also had had a difficult background, meaning she found it hard to stand up for herself and tell other people that she did not want them to touch her. She later told the offender about these circumstances and he was therefore aware of her vulnerabilities.

At their first meeting the offender penetrated V3's vagina with his fingers and again the next time they met he digitally penetrated her. V3 made it clear that she found it hard to say "no". V3 distanced herself from the offender. He had started to make her feel uncomfortable and she found out he was talking to other females too. But he resumed contact with her a few weeks later. V3 believed if she told the offender that she had difficulties in saying no to people that he might slow down his sexualised behaviour towards her. He did not. On their third and final meeting he lured V3 to an old derelict World War II bunker at Mount Wise, got her to remove her school skirt and tights and penetrated her vagina with his fingers and his penis, ending the sexual abuse by ejaculating inside her. By now the offender was 17 years old.

The next day, worried about the offender's intentions towards a similarly aged female friend of hers, V3 reported what had happened to her friend, their school and the police.

The offender was arrested and interviewed. He denied that they had had sex. DNA was obtained which proved that sex had occurred. This was his first police arrest.

On 11 August 2022 the police arrested and interviewed the offender again, this time about the offences against V2. He denied committing them and was released from the police station once more.

Fifteen days after the police interview in August 2022, the offender raped 14-year-old V4. The offender first met V4 around the time he was interviewed in relation to V2 and began communicating with her daily on Snapchat. They had met in person prior to the rape and had engaged in consensual kissing. V4 told the offender she was 14 and that at times she was unhappy in her home life.

On 26 August 2022, V4 agreed to sneak out of her mother's home address late at night and meet the offender outside a supermarket. From there they walked back to his home address where he took her up to his bedroom and exactly a year after raping V2, he raped V4. The rape resulted in his ejaculating inside V4 and impregnating her.

The next morning V4's mother realised that she was missing from home and using a tracking app linked to her mobile telephone she traced V4 to the offender's home address. Once V4's mother and step-father appeared at his door, the offender, assisted by an older male, convinced V4 to flee the house undetected. Whilst away from the offender's home, the offender spoke to his mother on the telephone. He and his mother persuaded V4 to keep quiet about the sexual act that had taken place. Too scared to defy them, V4 played up when faced with her mother, the police and other family members. V4 was taken back to her family home by the police and treated as a found missing person.

It was only when she realised that she was pregnant and required a termination that V4 spoke out about what had happened to her. The offender's response was to tell her to have a termination and he sent her pictures of him having sex with another girl.

In the months that followed V4 struggled with her mental health before reporting the rape. Again, the offender was interviewed by the police and he denied the rape.

Released on police bail and also awaiting trial, the offender met and sexually abused V5, who was aged 14. He was then aged 20. By the time he met V5 the offender had been made the subject of a Sexual Risk Order that prevented him from having any contact with anyone under the age of 16. The imposition of that order did not stop his offending and the offences committed against V5 also placed him in breach of that order.

On 11 November 2024 the offender was out in Plymouth when he bumped into V5 who was in the company of another school aged child that he knew. The three began talking, with the offender offering to give V5 a ride on his motorbike. As she reached for a helmet, the offender made a comment implying that he was attracted to her. Their mutual friend told the offender that V5 was only 14 years old and he responded in a way that demonstrated he had heard and understood what the mutual friend had said. As they continued to speak, the offender told V5 he wanted to see images of her breasts and bottom on the photo reel of her mobile telephone. He requested her Snapchat details and planned to meet with her again.

A few days later they met and during that meeting V5 made it clear that she did not like being touched, she was not interested in a relationship with the offender and she pointed out that she was only 14 years old, he was 20. As she suggested they leave the area they were because it was cold, the offender touched V5's inner thigh. She immediately told him to get off her, and he made the excuse that he was trying to warm his hands. The offender then asked V5 for a hug. He cuddled her from the side and grabbed at her breast. V5 pulled away. When other males appeared and looked over at them, the offender told the other males that they could look at V5 but her "ass" was his. He then dropped V5 back home.

The offender later messaged V5 telling her he loved her and that she was his dream girl. He asked if she would want him to use protection if they had sex. She replied saying they would not be having sex. The next day the offender met V5 again but on this occasion her sister raised the alarm with their mother, V5 was asked to return home and the police were contacted.

The offender had also failed to notify the police of a change of address and his use of a new mobile telephone, the one he had used to contact V5. He was therefore also in breach of the notification requirements which applied following the imposition of the Sexual Risk Order.

When interviewed by the police the offender claimed he did not know how old V5 was and he denied touching her sexually. The offender was then remanded in custody after charge and that remand necessarily ceased his offending.

The sentencing hearing took place on 28 November 2025. There were before the court for sentence a pre-sentence report from probation, a psychological report from Dr O'Brien dated 9 October 2024 and victim impact statements from each of the five victims.

The prosecution had filed a sentencing note for the assistance of the court, drawing the court's attention to the case of Ahmed [2023] EWCA Crim 281. We have read all of this material closely and carefully.

The judge began by noting that the majority of the offences had been committed when the offender was under 18. He considered the seriousness of the offences, observing that the five offences of non-consensual penetrative sexual activity crossed the custodial threshold and that had the offender been before the youth court aged 17 that court would have committed these offences to the Crown Court on the basis that a sentence of "substantially in excess of two years" was likely to be imposed.

The prosecution had suggested that each of the rape offences and the assault by penetration offences fell into culpability A of the relevant Sentencing Council guidelines, arguing that each of these offences had involved a significant degree of planning. The judge concluded that these were category B2 offences in the adult guideline where there is a starting point of eight years and a range of seven to nine years. The rape of V4, resulting as it had in pregnancy and termination, merited an upward adjustment, as also did the fact that the offender had been on bail at the time having been arrested for the rape of V2 just two weeks' previously.

Turning to the offences of assault by penetration, the judge placed those also in category B2 in the adult guideline where there is a starting point of six years with a range of four to nine years, saying that where there were two offences that was an aggravating factor. Regarding the offences of sexual activity with a child involving V3, the judge placed these into category A1 in the adult guideline, where there is a starting point of five years with a range of four to 10 years. The last of these offences involved ejaculation, which was an aggravating factor, as was the fact that there had been multiple offences against V3.

Dealing lastly with the set of offences committed against V5 when the offender was aged 20, the judge concluded that these fell into category B3 of the adult guideline with a starting point of a medium level community order and a range of a low to high community order. However, the fact that these offences were committed whilst the offender was on police bail and in breach of the terms of the Sexual Risk Order imposed on the offender merited a "substantial upward adjustment" from the starting point, passing the custody threshold.

Having dealt with where in the adult guidelines the various offences fell, the judge then turned to consider the offender's mitigation. He identified the offender's age at the time of the first set of offences (16 to 17) as a substantial mitigating factor. He noted the fact that although the later offences were committed on bail the offender had not previously been convicted of any offences at all. He recorded the offender's difficult upbringing, with a period of particular instability from the age of 14 when he had gone into foster care. The judge referred to the psychology report and the diagnosis of ASD when the offender was aged 11, together with a later diagnosis of ADHD. He noted that he had seen the offender give evidence at trial, which had showed that he was "capable of thoughtful recall and insight".

The judge then moved to dangerousness. Probation in the PSR had assessed the offender as dangerous and the judge accepted this assessment, observing:

The judge said that he was in no doubt that the offender presented a significant risk of serious harm being caused by the commission of further specified offences. However, he went on to say that he would not pass an extended sentence explaining.

The judge structured the sentence by taking as lead offences the two counts of rape (counts 3 and 9 on indictment 2) and passing consecutive determinate sentences on those with concurrent determinate sentences on all the remaining offences. He passed a sentence of five-and-a-half years on count 9, reduced from an equivalent adult sentence of nine years and a consecutive sentence of three-and-a-half years on count 3, reduced from an equivalent adult sentence of seven years. Observing shortly that the remainder of the sentences were to run concurrently, the judge then went on to pass the sentences for the other offences which we have noted above.

Miss White for the Solicitor General submits first that the judge failed to structure the sentences in such a way as to reflect the overall gravity of the offending against five separate victims. It is said that the judge misapplied totality such that the final overall sentence was not just and proportionate to the full catalogue of serious offending for which this offender was responsible. The judge should either have imposed adjusted consecutive sentences for the offending against each victim; alternatively, the lead sentences for the rapes should have been uplifted to a greater extent than they were in order properly to reflect the other offending.

Next, Miss White says that the judge's decision to afford a reduction of 50 per cent to the equivalent adult sentence was too great a reduction. At the time of the most serious rape (count 9 on indictment 2), the offender was aged 17 years and 11 months, just two weeks off his 18th birthday. It is said that the reduction should have been tapered to reflect the fact that his offending continued into adulthood and in breach of a Sexual Risk Order put in place specifically to afford protection to the public against the risk of serious sexual offending which he represented.

Lastly, Miss White argues that the judge's decision not to pass an extended sentence failed to provide sufficient protection given the persistence of the offending against five separate victims, disregarding warnings, arrest, bail and the terms of a Sexual Risk Order. In addition to that, as indicated in the pre-sentence report, the offender continued to reject any responsibility despite the jury's convicting him on all counts, all bearing badly for the prospects of successful intervention or rehabilitative work with him to reduce the risks posed.

The fact that contact offences against V5 occurred despite the imposition of a Sexual Risk Order, shows that these measures did not deter him or mitigate the risks to younger girls. An extended licence period, she says, should have been imposed so as to provide a significant period of further protection to the public.

Miss Churcher, for the offender, draws attention to the way the judge approached the case. He made a finding of dangerousness but decided not to impose an extended sentence which was within the ambit of his reasonable discretion given the length of the sentence being imposed. She says that he had the opportunity to observe the offender at trial and he had clearly read and considered all the reports. The approach which he ha adopted to dealing with dangerousness and risk was one that was within the reasonable exercise of his judgment.