Crook fails in bid to cut sentence

Leon Holder, 23, was sentenced to seven years’ imprisonment at Lewes Crown Court in February last year for robbery, unlawful wounding and drugs offences.

He appealed after his accomplice, William Smith, had his sentence for the robbery cut from six to four years, but this week failed in his own challenge.

Mr Justice Ouseley said Holder’s position was more serious because he injured a bystander, was earlier caught with drugs and admitted separate offences.

Holder, of Fairview, Hawkhurst, entered Friar House Antique Jewellers, in High Street, Battle, on November 13, 2009, pretending he was delivering a package.

But after he was let in, Smith burst in and the pair proceeded to smash jewellery cases, while being beaten back by staff members.

Smith was stopped by a member of the public, but Holder got away, knocking a pensioner to the ground as he ran off with thousands of pounds worth of jewellery. He had only one day earlier been released on bail after police found 42 grams of cannabis and other drug-dealing related equipment at his home.

He was finally arrested, but skipped bail, before realising the error of his ways and handing himself in at a police station in December 2010.

“It appears he wanted to make a new life for himself under the benign influence of a girl to whom he had become engaged and had a rather different outlook to his life of criminality and drug dealing,” said the appeal judge.

Holder’s lawyers argued that, because Smith had his six-year term for the robbery cut, then he too should have the portion of his sentence for the robbery reduced.

Rejecting his appeal, Mr Justice Ouseley, sitting with Lady Justice Hallet and Mr Justice Haddon-Cave, said he was in a worse position than Smith.

As well as the unlawful wounding, he had been sentenced for possessing cannabis with intent to supply and had asked for a burglary and other dishonesty offences to be taken into consideration.

The judge told the court: “In our judgment, the total sentence imposed on Mr Holder for the totality of his offending was entirely justified. When the totality of all that offending is taken into account, the sentence of seven years in total does not give rise to any objectionable disparity with the sentence of four years for Mr Smith for the robbery only.”