R v Bruno Claudio Sala

This is an application by His Majesty's Solicitor General, under section 36 of the Criminal Justice Act 1988, for leave to refer to this court a sentence which she submits is unduly lenient and should be increased. We give leave.

This is a case to which the Sexual Offences (Amendment) Act 1992 applies. No material may appear in any publication which identifies any of the victims of any of these offences as having been victims of the offences. That protection will apply to them for the rest of their lives. It applies to all stages of these proceedings, including this one.

The offender is Bruno Claudio Sala. He is now 39 years old.

On 28 November 2025, following a trial in the Crown Court at Portsmouth, the offender was sentenced by His Honour Judge Bowes KC to seven concurrent life sentences, with a minimum term of 16 years and 137 days' imprisonment, and to two concurrent terms of three years' imprisonment for offences of assault occasioning actual bodily harm.

The nine offences were committed against three different victims, "V1", "V2" and "V3". They were committed over a period which began in 2019 and ended at the end of 2020. The life sentences were imposed for offences as follows: count 1 alleged anal rape against V1; count 2 alleged vaginal rape against V1; count 6 alleged encouraging or assisting rape against V2; count 9 alleged anal rape against V2; count 10 alleged encouraging or assisting rape or sexual assault against V2; count 11 alleged anal rape against V2; and count 16 alleged anal rape against V3. We have set out the offences as they are listed in the indictment, which is not chronological order in which they were committed.

Earlier, on 23 May 2023, His Honour Judge Bowes KC had imposed on the offender an extended determinate sentence of 25 years, comprising a custodial term of 20 yeas and an extended licence period of five years. The offences which resulted in that total sentence were committed against "V4". These offences were committed in 2022 and therefore were the most recent in time. The offences against V4 were as follows: an offence of vaginal rape committed on 24 March 2022; secondly, an offence of assault by penetration, committed on 13 April 2022. On the same date there were further offences against V4 of sexual assault, assault occasioning actual bodily harm and rape. Concurrent determinate terms of imprisonment were imposed in respect of the first four of those offences, but the fifth offence (rape) resulted in the extended determinate sentence which we have already described.

This application relates to the sentences imposed at the hearing which took place on 28 November 2025. As we have said, on that day seven life sentences were imposed. The minimum terms are the subject of the submissions advanced on behalf of the Solicitor General. They were calculated by taking a notional determinate sentence of 30 years' imprisonment. That was then reduced by one third to take account of the relevant early release provisions. There was then a further reduction of 1,323 days for time spent on remand or serving the May 2023 sentence. The date of 16 April 2022 is that which is 1,323 days before 28 November 2025. The latest of the offences against V4 were committed on 13 April 2022. The offender was arrested, charged and remanded into custody soon after that date. He was in custody on remand from then until 23 May 2023, and thereafter served the extended determinate sentence imposed on that date, until 28 November 2025, when he began to serve the life sentences alongside it.

Accordingly, on the second of those hearing dates, November 2025, the judge was dealing with a long series of serious sexual offences against four different women. His task on that date was to fix a minimum term for the life sentences which reflected the whole of that offending, including the offending against V4. That was because the impact of the extended determinate sentence would be eradicated by the imposition of the life sentences, particularly when the judge gave full credit against those minimum term for all the time spent in custody following the offender's arrest in April 2022. The judge was concerned to take that approach in order to avoid any unfairness resulting against the interest of the offender from the prosecution decision to charge and prosecute the later offences against V4 before the earlier offences against V1, V2 and V3, rather than trying them all together, as might perhaps have happened. That approach is not criticised by the Solicitor General. Indeed, on behalf of the Solicitor General, Miss Pattison, who has argued this application before us today, accepts that the judge was right in every respect in the approach that he took in this difficult case on 28 November 2025: except one. She says that the notional determinate sentence of 30 years for all of the offending against all four victims was unduly lenient. That short point is the sole issue which we have to consider on this application. No question of credit for any guilty plea arises. All of the convictions followed trials. Other orders were made, including concurrent determinate sentences which it is not necessary for us now to set out.

One matter to which we should refer is the recording of the statutory surcharge order. The judge does not appear to have expressed the making of that order, but it has been recorded as having been made in the court record. There may perhaps be an error in transcription from the Crown Court. The statutory surcharge was properly made, should have been enunciated by the judge, and we declare that the court record is accurate in that regard.

It is of some significance to record that there was another offender at the second trial. He was convicted of two counts of rape against V2, which were counts 7 and 8. He received an extended determinate sentence, the details of which it is not necessary to set out.

It is unfortunately necessary to set out in some detail the conduct of which the offender was convicted by two separate juries. It reveals that between 2019 and 2020 he encountered V1, V2 and V3 on dating apps. All three of those women had been involved in their pasts in dysfunctional relationships which had left them unhappy. They were single mothers who, using these dating apps, were looking for a committed and loving relationship which could restore their wellbeing. Each of them to a degree was in a vulnerable condition, and each of them was brutally exploited.

The offender appeared to them initially to be charming and charismatic. Each of them thought (or hoped) that she had encountered what she was looking for. Each of them was to be traumatically disappointed.

Over time in each relationship the offender began to coerce the victim. He manipulated them into agreeing to have sex with other men, because that is what excited him. They were willing to go along with this in order to please him.

V2 in particular was subjected to serious violence in order to force her to submit to the crimes of rape by the second offender. That resulted in the conviction for assault occasioning actual bodily harm (count 5) and also the conviction for encouraging or assisting rape (count 6). V2 was also blindfolded and tied up on one occasion when a number of men then were admitted into her address and raped her.

We turn to the facts in more detail.

V1 met the offender on Tinder in 2019. She had two young daughters. She had been involved in her past in a violent relationship about which she told the offender. Among other things which had happened to her, as she said to him, was an event when she had been the victim of strangulation.

There came a time when the offender suggested to V1 that she should set up an online profile so that she could meet men for sex and tell him about it while he was away working.

Not very long after the start of the relationship she began to see that things were going wrong.

Count 1 arose out of an incident which occurred at some point in June 2019. V1 had taken part in a charity boxing match. She arrived home afterwards to find the offender lying on her bed. She was surprised to see him because he was supposed to be visiting his mother. He became angry. He accused her of disrespecting him by allowing herself to be touched by other men. He wanted sex. V1 said no, because of his behaviour. He said that he needed to release his anger and was going to "fuck [her] arse". He pushed her down with one hand on the back of her neck. She tried to get up but could not. She said "No", and she told him that what he was doing was rape. He then anally raped her. He ejaculated. He caused her immense pain. The following day she was still in pain and she felt ashamed.

During the relationship the offender manipulated V1 by making frequent presents of jewellery and "treated her like a princess". He also pressurised her to take cocaine. In all of this time he was living off her. He used her savings, which were wiped out.

Count 2 related to an occasion in December 2019 when they were due to have contact with the offender's son. They had been out the night before at a nightclub. The offender told her to find a man for sex. She did not, but during the time that he had left her to do that her coat was stolen. For whatever reason, when they did meet, he was angry with her. The following morning he wanted sex with her. He said that he needed to release sexual tension. V1 said that she did not want sex. He grabbed her, caused her fear, bent her over the bed and vaginally raped her.

Count 3, an allegation of assault occasioning actual bodily harm, occurred on 12 January 2020. This was an event which was particularly frightening for V1 because of her previous experience of strangulation at the hands of another man. On this occasion she discovered that the offender was using dating apps, which caused an argument. He seized her phone, grabbed her by the neck, picked her up and slammed her to the floor. Her head hit the floor. As soon as she could get up, she opened the window and shouted for someone to call the police.

V1 reported the incident to the police and the offender was arrested. He said that she had lied because she was addicted to cocaine. The police took no further action. That concludes the offending against V1.

V3 was also a single mother. She had also previously been in a violent relationship with someone else. She had been diagnosed with a recurrent depressive disorder and had had mental breakdowns in the past. She had the profound misfortune to meet the offender on a dating app in April or May 2020. He won her trust. She went to meet him in a hotel where he was staying. She fell under his control and was manipulated by him. Again, he also wanted her to have sex with other men, and she went along with this to make him happy. She thought that if she did not, he would leave her. He called her his "royalty". He said how proud he was of her. This made her feel good and she became dependent on him.

Count 16 alleges anal rape against V3. V3 was not feeling well and she wanted to go back to the hotel where the offender were staying in order to sleep. He wanted to have sex, but she said that she could not. He said, "It doesn't matter what you say. I'm the boss. I will say when you're tired. You're my bitch". He then anally raped her. He forced himself on her and told her to "Shut up". She told him that he was hurting her and that she wanted him to stop, but he did not listen. She froze. It seemed to her to go on for a very long time and it caused her terrible pain.

V2 met the offender on a different dating app, "Plenty of Fish". She loved him. Looking back on how the relationship developed, she realised that because of her love for him she had not been aware of how he was manipulating her. Again, he bought her jewellery, clothes and shoes. He would emotionally knock her down, but he was also able to pick her back up again. It was in that context that the series of offences we are about to relate took place.

Count 5 was an offence of assault occasioning actual bodily harm and count 6, encouraging or assisting rape. Those two counts related to the same occasion.

Count 7 was a different occasion; it involved rape by the co-defendant. Count 10 was the allegation against the offender of encouraging or assisting rape against V2. This occasion occurred at some point in 2020. The offender had suggested a threesome. Initially, V2 said that she would go along with that. But when the other man (who was to become the co-defendant) arrived, she did not feel that she wanted to have sex with him; she did not like him. This did not deflect the offender from his plan. V2 made it perfectly clear that she did not want to have sex with this associate he had found. His response was to punch her multiple times to her face. She fell down. She manage to get up, but he continued to hit her. She still made it clear that she did not want to have sex with this man. In the end, the offender hit her so hard and so often that she agreed under coercion to do so. One of these blows caused her earring to become embedded in her face.

The co-defendant then raped V2 vaginally. This made her feel numb and she wanted to die. The offender then made her get up and bent her over the bed. They lubricated her with baby oil and the associate anally raped her in a violent and particularly aggressive way. The offender abused her throughout, saying, "How does it make you feel, knowing you are a dirty little slag?" She was humiliated. The following morning the offender made her walk around in the property, naked, serving him and his associate breakfast. He forced her to stand against the window, where she was visible, still naked. He would say to her, "I'm proud of you. Keep going like this, you'll become a royalty. At the moment you are a bitch". On the second of these occasions he told her that she had to find a man to have sex with and then to use her phone on WhatsApp video so that he could watch it. She agreed and invited a friend over. However, the friend noticed the phone and left.

Count 9 was an offence of anal rape against V2. It also occurred in 2020. This was the occasion when she was raped in the flat where they lived by perhaps as many as ten or 15 men. She was hoping, before this happened, that things would be all right between her and the offender. Things became better for a while, but then he took her to a flat. She thought that there were already ten or 15 men there. He gave her a drink The next thing she knew, she woke up at about five o'clock in the morning in an unfamiliar flat, not knowing how she had come to be there. Her vagina was sore, but she had no idea what had happened to her or who had done it. The offender said that she had not done as she was told and that she had not impressed him. She did not understand what he meant. At one point he manipulated her so that her top half was out of a window in this loft accommodation, where she would be not only visible but also in fear of falling. After that, he pushed her down, held his forearm against her back and pulled down her trousers. She heard him spitting. He raped her anally. She begged him to stop. He did not. He ejaculated. He then lay down on the bed with his hands behind his head and said, "I want you to go now". She did not even know where she was until she walked out of the flat. She had no money on her, and she had to walk all the way back to her flat, which was some distance away. She did not hear from the offender for a week.

Count 10 was an allegation of encouraging or assisting the commission of rape against V2. Count 11 was an offence of rape against V2. Both offences took place in 2020.

On another occasion, the offender told V2 that he wanted to tie her up. She allowed him to do so. He tied her hands together with a belt and tied her ankles together. He also gagged her with a dress, and used another dress as a blindfold. She heard voices and footsteps and she realised what was about to happen. She heard men talking to each other, including the offender who said, "Yes, that's a nice arse, I know". She could not move because she was tied up. She had no idea how many men were present, but she knew that there were at least three different men. Each of them raped her in the presence of the offender, and the offender then anally raped her. V2 said, "Why are you doing this to me?" He responded that she should not have been crying like a bitch; she was supposed to be doing as she was told. As with the other two victims, he referred to her as "royalty" – a term he used to described his victims. He said that that meant that she was top notch and she was to do as she was asked.

It will be recalled that the offending against V4 was dealt with in May 2023, some considerable time before the sentences with which we are directly concerned, but this offending is part of the sequence of events which the minimum terms for the seven life sentences were intended to reflect. It is necessary therefore to set this out also in a little detail.

V4 lived alone with her 10 year old son who has autism. She was introduced to the offender through a friend. On an occasion in March 2022, the offender turned up at her address drunk. She let him in because she was worried that he would make such a noise as to disturb her neighbours. She told him to sleep on her sofa and went back to bed.

The following morning she went into her living room. The offender was there. He came up behind her, cuddled her and pulled her towards the sofa. She said, "No". He pinned her arms down and kept pulling at her trousers to get them down. She tried to free herself and to stop him from doing that. She told him to stop and to get off her. She tried to clamp her legs together, but she could not. She was vaginally raped. Later, the offender said that he had thought that when she was resisting him and saying "No", this was roleplay. She made it perfectly clear that that was not the position and that "no" meant no.

On another occasion the offender had bought alcohol and also in this relationship he introduced the idea of V4 having sex with him and another man. She said that that was not something that could happen in her flat, which was also the home of her son. She said though that if she was in a real relationship, she might consider it. She said that that was "a very big if".

The offender had with him cocaine which he pressed upon her. She took some because of that pressure. He became verbally forceful. He wanted her to dress up in a particular type of lingerie with her breasts exposed for photography which could go onto a website. She said that she was not the girl for that, but she again went along with it because it was the easy course.

Later, he tied her up, using arm and wrist restraints. She thought that this was going to lead to consensual sex. The restraints were quite strong. She was then blindfolded. She could see a little despite the blindfold, and she saw him get up and leave. When he returned, he started to hit her with a dog lead from her neck down to her thighs. She told him to stop. He asked her what the safe word was, and she said that there had not been one. He then punched her around the face, tied her legs so that she could not move, and demanded that she say "Yes, sir" and "yes, boss". She said that the pain was worse than childbirth. He then sexually assaulted her by performing oral sex on her and penetrating her with a sex toy. Somebody else was then allowed into the flat and got into the bed. He inserted his fingers into V4's vagina and raped her. He also used a sex toy on her. Then a third male arrived and behaved in a similar way with a sex toy before anally raping her.

Eventually, she persuaded the offender to release her so that she could check on her son. She thought, because this is what the offender said, that there were more men waiting nearby, expecting to take their turn. She did not see any other men, but she was still in terrible pain. Notwithstanding that, the offender then raped her again.

The offender has previous convictions in addition to the matters we have already recited. None of these is of direct relevance.

At the November hearing the judge was provided with victim personal statements by V1, V2 and V3. He was already aware of the serious impact the offending had had on V4 from his knowledge at the earlier trial.

In a pre-sentence report prepared in October 2025 the author, unsurprisingly, was of the opinion that the offender poses a high risk of serious harm to sexual partners.

There were character references written about the offender which the judge had read and took into account.

The judge identified and applied all the relevant guidelines He went through the process of examining each individual offence to place it in an appropriate category. He took the categories from the guideline on rape. This is necessary in a case of this kind, although it is somewhat of an artificial exercise. The minimum term is not to be calculated by aggregating all of those shorter sentences calculated by reference to the guideline. Nor, indeed, is it likely to bear much relationship to any individual sentence. Nevertheless, it was an exercise which the judge undertook without error.

The judge decided that there was no available mitigation to the offender. He concluded, again unsurprisingly, that he is dangerous for the purposes of the statutory scheme and fell to be dealt with as a dangerous offender. The judge concluded that in respect of the seven offences which carried life imprisonment with which he had to deal, a life sentence was justified and was therefore required by the terms of the Act. He calculated the minimum term in relation to those seven life sentences in the way that we have already described. In doing so, the judge had in mind in particular the guideline on offences taken into consideration and totality. His objective was to derive a minimum term which was proportionate to all of the offending with which he had to deal.

In short, it is submitted by Miss Pattison on behalf of the Solicitor General that the minimum term of 16 years and 137 days was unduly lenient.

Miss Akudolu KC, on behalf of the offender, accepts and endorses the judge's approach. She contends that the lengthy minimum term was proportionate, notwithstanding the number of offences and their gravity. She accepts, therefore, that this was an appropriate case for a life sentence. She accepts the judge's finding as to dangerousness, which was inherent in that conclusion. She does not urge on this court that the judge was wrong in his approach to mitigation. She makes the point that the decision of the prosecution to deal with this matter by way of two trials complicated the judge's task and submits that, notwithstanding that, the judge arrived at an appropriate conclusion with which this court should not interfere. She reminds us of the high threshold which the court applies in deciding whether or not to exercise the present power to deal with sentences which it concludes are unduly lenient.

We are grateful to both counsel and to those who have assisted them in the careful way in which they have presented their submissions, both orally and in writing.

One of the criticisms which is made in the Reference is that the judge did not identify the basis on which he decided that the notional determinate sentence which would form the foundation of his calculation of the minimum terms was 30 years. In our judgment it is clear enough how he arrived at that conclusion. We have considered, as no doubt he did too, the decision of this court in R v AYO [2022] EWCA Crim 1271; [2023] 1 Cr App R(S) 2024. In that case this court considered the appropriate approach to sentencing multiple sexual offences on a single occasion. At [24] the court analysed previous decisions of the court in dealing with such cases. Those decisions had followed in the most part decisions in Attorney General's Reference (R v JRM) [2021] EWCA Crim 524 and Attorney General's Reference (R v Wilson) [2021] EWCA Crim 839. Those two decisions concerned offences of exceptionally serious gravity which had resulted in minimum terms based upon notional determinate sentences as high as 60 years.

In AYO the court set about the task of explaining how those very high notional determinate sentences related to other cases encountered now and in the future. At [24] Holroyde LJ, giving the judgment of the court, said:

In relation to JRM and Wilson the court said, at [27]:

We consider that the decision in AYO provides adequate guidance with sufficient clarity to address cases of the present kind. It is not necessary for us in dealing with this case to attempt to paraphrase, articulate or restate anything which appears in that decision. The question, therefore, is whether this is one of the "comparatively rare" category of cases where sentences in excess of 30 years would be appropriate because the case is "particularly serious".

For reasons which we trust are obvious from the narrative of the facts which we have set out at some length in the course of this judgment, we have come to the conclusion, without hesitation, that this case is in that comparatively rare category where sentences in excess of 30 years are appropriate. Taken together, the offending against all four victims amounted to a course of conduct which abundantly deserves the description "particularly serious". We therefore consider that the judge ought to have applied the guidance in AYO to that finding and arrived at a notional determinate sentence as the basis on which his minimum terms would be calculated in excess of 30 years.

We consider that although this is a particularly serious case for very obvious reasons, it is not a case at the level demonstrated by the facts in McCann, Sinaga and JRM, where notional determinate sentences well in excess of 40 years were derived before appropriate discounts for the early release provisions.

We consider that in relation to the seven life sentences which the judge imposed, a notional determinate sentence in each case of 38 years would have been appropriate. That is to be reduced of one third because of the early release provisions, so that it becomes a minimum term of 25 years and four months in respect of each of the seven offences on which life sentences were imposed. Those terms will run concurrently with each other.

We therefore quash the judge's sentences on those seven counts only and substitute in their place the minimum terms of 25 years and four months. All the other sentences that the judge imposed and all the other orders that he made stand and are unaffected by this decision.

The period of 25 years and four months is to be reduced by 1,323 days for the time spent on remand and serving the first sentence which was imposed in May 223. Accordingly, the minimum terms which the offender will have to serve are 21 years and 258 days.