Introduction
We have covered the case of Adam Johnson, the former footballer who was sentenced to 6 years for child sexual offences on 24th March 2016.
It was announced on 12th April that he had lodged an appeal against his sentence.
Will he succeed?
Here’s what we said at the time :
“6 years is clearly within the range of permissible sentences. While we might dispute the need (or legitimacy) of a consecutive sentence for the grooming – and there is certainly debate to be had over whether or not this constitutes double counting – it does not appear to be so high that the Court of Appeal would feel inclined to intervene“.
We haven’t seen the grounds of appeal (it would be open to him to publish them on his ‘Appeal Fight’ Facebook page), but there is nothing that we have seen in the media to suggest that our initial view is wrong.
We shall come back to it when there’s more details. In the meantime, here is an overview of how appeals work.