R v Tyrone Henn

Facts

The applicant, Tyrone Henn, was tried in the Crown Court at Warwick before His Honour Judge Andrew Lockhart KC and a jury on a 43 count indictment brought against him and four co-defendants, which included counts of theft, handling stolen goods, robbery, attempted robbery, burglary, going equipped for theft, having an offensive weapon and dangerous driving. The charges under the Theft Act 1968 all concerned relatively high value cars, the total value of those stolen by the group being £780,000, taken over a period of a little over a year between July 2022 and August 2023. The applicant's own offending ran between 15 December 2022 and 21 August 2023 and involved cars worth a little over £410,000. The trial ran for five weeks between 6 January and 12 February 2025; the co-defendants pleaded guilty during it, so only the applicant's case went to the jury. He contested every charge on the basis that he was a victim of modern slavery, which the judge described as "fatuous". On 12 February 2025 he was convicted of seven counts of theft, eight counts of handling stolen goods and one count of going equipped for theft, and on 21 March 2025 he was sentenced to a total of ten and a half years' imprisonment. The single judge refused leave to appeal against sentence on the papers, and the application was renewed, together with an application to extend time by 13 days.