R v Yossa Maunders

Facts

The appellant, formerly known as Andrew Yorath, changed his name by deed poll on 13 February 2020 to Yossa Maunders. On 26 July 2024 in the Crown Court at Cardiff he pleaded guilty, having indicated his intention to plead guilty at the earliest opportunity, to fourteen sexual offences committed against two brothers who knew him from the local area where they grew up. V1 was abused between 7 September 1988 and 6 September 1993, when he was 8 to 12 years old; the first rape occurred in a gully after the appellant lured him there on the pretence of getting him a bike from the dump, threatening him with a house brick, and the rapes were thereafter repeated many times in secluded places and in a shed with a blacked-out window. V2 was abused between 5 February 1988 and 4 February 1992, when he was 10 to 13 years old, escaping only when he ran away from home and was taken into care. On 22 May 2025 HHJ Simon Mills imposed six years' imprisonment on count 5 and a consecutive extended determinate sentence of ten years on count 14 under section 279 of the Sentencing Act 2020, with concurrent sentences on the remaining counts. The appellant appealed against sentence with the leave of the single judge.