Abid, R. v [2026] EWCA Crim 360 (12 February 2026)

Neutral Citation Number: [2026] EWCA Crim 360 Case No 2025/03072/A5 IN THE COURT OF APPEAL CRIMINAL DIVISION ON APPEAL FROM THE CENTRAL CRIMINAL COURT (HER HONOUR JUDGE DHIR KC) [S20230175] Royal Courts of Justice The Strand London WC2A 2LL 12 February 2026 B e f o r e : LORD JUSTICE HOLGATE MR JUSTICE HILLIARD HER HONOUR JUDGE MORELAND (Sitting as a Judge of the Court of Appeal Criminal Division) ____________________ R EX - v - MUHAMMAD ABID ____________________ Computer Aided Transcription of Epiq Europe Ltd, Lower Ground Floor, 46 Chancery Lane, London WC2A 1JE Tel No: 020 7404 1400; Email: rcj@epiqglobal.co.uk (Official Shorthand Writers to the Court) ____________________ The Applicant appeared as a Litigant in Person Mr A Du Sautoy appeared on behalf of the Crown ____________________ HTML VERSION OF JUDGMENT ____________________ Crown Copyright © This Transcript is Crown Copyright. It is not to be reproduced in whole or in part other than in accordance with relevant licence or with the express consent of the Authority. All rights are reserved. Thursday 12 February 2026 LORD JUSTICE HOLGATE: On 22 December 2023, having been convicted after summary trial before the Magistrates' Court, the applicant (then aged 33) was committed for sentence in respect of two offences. He appealed against conviction, but his appeal was dismissed at the Central Criminal Court on 23 April 2024. On 26 June 2024, he was sentenced as follows: Charge 1 – breach of notification requirements, contrary to sections 47 and 54 of the Counter Terrorism Act 2008 – a special custodial sentence of three years and three months, consisting of a custodial term of two years and three months and an extended licence period of one year. Charge 2 – breach of notification requirements, contrary to sections 47 and 54 of the Counter Terrorism Act 2008 – a special custodial sentence of two years and six months, consisting of a custodial term of 18 months and an extended licence period of one year. The sentences were ordered to run concurrently. Thus, the total sentence was a special custodial sentence of three years three months, for an offender of particular concern, pursuant to section 278 of the Sentencing Act 2020, consisting of a custodial term of two years three months and an extended licence period of one year. The applicant's applications for an extension of time of 392 days and for leave to appeal against sentence were referred to the full court by the single judge. The court directed that if leave to appeal and an extension of time were to be granted, the appeal would be considered at the same hearing. The applicant has chosen to represent himself. It appeared from the applicant's written submissions before the court that he might be intending to ask for the hearing to be adjourned because certain material had arrived late or because he had not yet obtained some fresh evidence upon which he was proposing to rely. However, at the hearing today the applicant confirmed that he was not making any further procedural applications in relation to his application for leave or the appeal itself, or asking for an adjournment. He was right not to do so. In our judgment there would have been no merit in any application for an adjournment and the applicant has not been prejudiced in any way by the procedure leading up to this hearing. The applicant has received the transcript of the judge's sentencing remarks, and a new document, a progress report from the Probation Service, at some point in January 2026. The Criminal Appeal Office was under the impression that the applicant had received the transcript of the sentencing remarks before September 2025. Certainly he was present when sentence was passed and his comprehensive proposed grounds of appeal in July 2025 showed a detailed appreciation of what the judge did and did not say. The sentencing remarks and the pre-sentence report each occupied two pages. They would not have taken long to digest and the applicant was able to make his observations and criticisms of the latter in writing on 30 January 2026. For completeness we mention the transcript of the decision in the Crown Court on the conviction appeal. That has been obtained very recently and was handed to the applicant yesterday afternoon. Again, the content would not have come as any surprise to the applicant and he made no complaint about timing. The applicant had also requested a transcript of the whole of the sentencing hearing and the first day of the appeal against conviction in order to look for any procedural irregularities. Such a request was not justified. The applicant indicated that he wished to apply to rely upon fresh evidence in the form of character references and a psychiatric report on his mental health at the time of the offences and sentencing, including, for example, an anxiety condition, to provide context for his behaviour and culpability. However, we consider that the applicant has had an ample opportunity since conviction to obtain this evidence, even allowing for the difficulties of acting in person while serving a prison sentence. First, there was a gap of three months before sentencing when the character references could have been obtained. Likewise, an expert could have been instructed and a report obtained. Alternatively, the applicant could have asked for an adjournment in the Crown Court which would have been preferable to asking for an adjournment in this court. But it appears that he did not do so. He would therefore face an uphill struggle in justifying the admission of fresh evidence on appeal. On 7 November 2025, the applicant said that the fresh evidence was currently being "identified and arranged". The Court of Appeal Office set a deadline of 3 December 2025 for this material to be provided. On 30 November 2025, the applicant asked for that to be extended by eight weeks to 28 January 2026. On 21 January 2026, Holgate LJ set a final deadline of 4 February, and made it clear that the hearing would not be adjourned for the purpose of enabling fresh evidence to be obtained. There has been no real explanation as to why the evidence, including expert evidence, was not obtained by the applicant within the deadline he set himself. It does not appear that an expert has even been identified. In the usual way we have received a summary of the case prepared by the Criminal Appeal Office. The applicant has had an opportunity to comment on that document and he did so on 6 January 2026. We have taken all of those comments into account. The facts of the case may be summarised as follows. The applicant became subject to Part 4 Notification Requirements under the Counter Terrorism Act 2008 for a period of ten years following his conviction in January 2018 for failing to disclose information about acts of terrorism, contrary to section 38B of the Terrorism Act 2000. The notification period runs to 17 December 2030, after adjustment for a period of time when the applicant was recalled to custody. Charge 1 concerned the applicant's failure between 26 August 2021 and 29 March 2022 to notify the police of the account number and sort code of a Santander bank account. He had notified the card number of the account, but was reminded on 2 September 2021 by his offender manager to obtain and provide the account details. Bank statements for the account containing the relevant information had been sent to the applicant's address. When dismissing the appeal against conviction, the judge said that the court was satisfied that the applicant had opened the statements at his own address before taking them to his wife's address where they were found when the police executed a search warrant in March 2022. There was also evidence from Santander of repeated transfers involving this account using a mobile banking app during the relevant period. It was obviously not an account the applicant had forgotten about or overlooked. It was an account with which he was actively engaged. The second charge related to the period between 29 October and 26 November 2021. The applicant had previously notified the police of the possibility that he might use a particular Vauxhall car. However, he failed to notify the police that he no longer had the right to use it after it had been scrapped on 29 October 2021. He did notify the acquisition of a new vehicle on 29 November 2021, but not the current position about the Vauxhall. The offender manager said that the applicant had refused to comply with requests made by the police, including requests to visit him at his home address. The applicant's case had been that he had either complied with the requests or done his best to do so; that his paperwork was disorganised; that he had not looked at his bank statements properly; and that he was struggling to organise his paperwork properly because of his mental health. When dismissing the appeal against conviction, the judge said that the court was sure that the applicant knew what was required of him but deliberately failed to provide the information. When she passed sentence, the judge did not have a pre-sentence report, a matter to which we return below. She said that the maximum sentence for each offence was five years' imprisonment. There were no offence specific guidelines. The judge said that she had regard to the "General guideline: overarching principles", and to the guideline on totality. She said that the applicant's culpability was high because there were two offences, the duration of the offending and the lengths to which he had gone to conceal the bank account from the police. She said that the harm was to be categorised as medium-high because of the evidence in the case and because of the inherent gravity of terrorism. She said that compliance with notification requirements was vital in the interests of public safety. She referred to R v Roddis [2024] EWCA Crim 35 and said that in her view firm and deterrent punishment was called for in a case such as the present one. She referred to the explanatory notes to the Counter Terrorism and Border Security Act 2019, which we address below. The judge said that the mitigating factors included the applicant's age and the fact that his only conviction was the one which resulted in the imposition of the notification requirements. She also referred to the following additional matters relied upon by the applicant: "… the offence was victimless, that no distress was caused, that no harm was caused, the police were not obstructed, and the authorities were not stopped from carrying out their duties, and your personal mitigation; that you have an anxiety disorder and so being in prison will have an effect on you for that reason as well. … you have now learnt how to comply with the order. You are the sole carer for your partner who is your wife. Although you do not live together, and the authorities have given you separate accommodation, you are her carer. You are a father, and while you have been in prison, you have not had the sort of contact you would normally have with your children. And while you have been in prison, you have told me, and I have nothing in front of me to say it is not true and so I rely on what you have said, that you have been a model prisoner." The judge said that the offences were so serious that only a custodial sentence could be justified and that she was imposing the least possible sentence she could, having regard to the aggravating and mitigating features. The applicant had been found guilty after a trial in 2018 of one count of failing to disclose information to the police about acts of terrorism, contrary to section 38B(1)(b) of the Terrorism Act 2000. He was sentenced to four years and three months' imprisonment. He had failed to disclose information that another man, Umar Haque, was secretly radicalising young boys at a mosque, showing them Islamic State videos and teaching them the virtues of martyrdom; and that the man had a plan to organise an attack or multiple attacks in London in which he wanted to deploy the children. The trial judge, Haddon-Cave J (as he then was) sentenced Haque to life imprisonment, with a minimum term of 25 years. The judge found to the criminal standard that the applicant knew that Haque was secretly radicalising 12 year old boys in this way, and knew of his plans to launch attacks of that kind. He rejected the applicant's attempt to present himself as a gentle soul who had only sought to steer Haque away from this dangerous path. He had not reported these matters to the police because he had been sympathetic to much of what the other man had been saying and planning. "His failure to alert the authorities was shocking and sells the lie to his motivations." The applicant did not appeal against conviction or sentence. The Part 4 Notification Requirements were for a period of ten years, beginning on the applicant's release date of 11 July 2019. On 19 March 2020, the applicant was recalled to custody after breaching his licence conditions. On 25 August 2021, he was released again. It is necessary to put the notification requirements into context. On 11 July 2019, the police hand delivered to the applicant a letter which set out all the requirements with which he had to comply. Five of them were existing requirements, but five were new and one was amended. The requirements the subject of the charges against the applicant were amongst the new stipulations. As the letter said, these changes came about as the result of the amendments made to, or insertions of, sections 47, 48 and 48A and Schedule 3A to the Counter-Terrorism Act 2008 by the Counter-Terrorism and Border Security Act 2019. Paragraph 1 of the Explanatory Notes to the latter Act explains the importance of these new measures: " Strengthen the sentencing framework for terrorism-related offences and the powers for managing terrorist offenders following their release from custody , including by increasing the maximum penalty for certain offences, to ensure that the punishment better reflects the crime and to better prevent re-offending ." (our emphasis) The new financial requirements in the legislation expressly required details of each bank account number and sort code in addition to the number of any bank card. The letter from the police had faithfully set out those specific requirements. That letter was clear. The notification requirements arose from the commission of an offence under section 38B of the 2000 Act, which related to a failure by the applicant to disclose to the police serious terrorism matters, so that steps could be taken to protect the safety of the public. The notification requirements with which the applicant failed to comply serve the same fundamental purpose. In these circumstances we consider that the applicant's earlier offence was an aggravating feature of the index offences. As in the Crown Court, the applicant has not been represented before us. He has, however, had the opportunity to make oral submissions, which he has done most eloquently this morning. In addition, he has put in a large number of written submissions. For example, his proposed grounds of appeal run to 32 typewritten pages, although there is some repetition. The applicant says that the extension of time is needed because of the difficulties he has faced whilst in custody in accessing documents and legal materials and because of mental health issues that he says he has. The submissions he makes are most appropriately dealt with topic by topic. The points are not complex and much of the detail provided by the applicant is unhelpful because it often relies upon reference to cases which on further examination either do not exist at all or are not authority for the proposition which the applicant seeks to advance. The applicant says that the judge erred in her assessment of culpability and harm; that he did not intentionally omit required information; that the judge misapplied R v Roddis ; that she did not give sufficient weight to mitigating features; that she should have had a pre-sentence report; and that the extra licence period is disproportionate and unlawful. We have no doubt that there is no reasonable explanation for the failure to submit the application for leave to appeal long before 392 days had elapsed beyond the 28 day time limit for applying for leave to appeal. The applicant's central submissions are straightforward, namely that he was not as culpable as the judge said, and that the harm was not as great as the judge found. We appreciate the difficulties for any applicant who has to draft their own grounds of appeal, particularly if they are in custody. But even supposing it might have taken the applicant more than 28 days to lodge an application for leave to appeal because of the fact that he was in custody, the overall period taken cannot be justified. Accordingly, it seems to us that we would have to be satisfied that there was real merit in an appeal and a real prospect of injustice to the applicant if we did not extend time. Mr Alex du Sautoy for the prosecution also appeared before the judge. There are no specific sentencing guidelines for an offence under section 54 of the 2008 Act. Accordingly, his sentencing note rightly referred the judge to the General guideline: overarching principles. It is plain from her sentencing remarks that the judge had those principles well in mind. Under section 278 of the Sentencing Act 2020, where a court imposes a sentence of imprisonment for breach of notification requirements, the term of the sentence must be equal to the aggregate of the appropriate custodial term and a further period of one year during which the offender is subject to a licence. The licence must not extend beyond the maximum term of imprisonment with which the offence is punishable, namely five years. That is an important consideration. In R v WJ [2023] EWCA Crim 789 ; [2024] 1 WLR 1935 , this court considered section 278 and concluded that it did not oblige a judge to pass a custodial sentence "although it assumes that this is likely to happen". In the present case, the applicant was convicted of two offences after a contested trial. He did not have the benefit of guilty pleas. The judge had heard the evidence in the trial which referred to the applicant's personal circumstances, and she had heard him give evidence. We have a progress report dated 19 November 2025 prepared by a probation officer who has seen the applicant on six occasions between December 2024 and November 2025. We have taken into account the applicant's comments on the report in his submissions dated 30 January. Despite what the applicant says, the report did note that the applicant is working on an Open University law course. This is for an LLB. We also note that he has achieved a distinction in criminal law. It is clear to us that he has been well able to articulate in writing, as well as orally, the points he wishes the court to consider. The author of the report did not consider that the applicant had been completely honest in his answers and thought that there was a degree of impression management in his presentation. It was said that he was not engaging with an interview for an Extreme Risk Guidance assessment partly because of his application for leave to appeal against sentence. The author's view was that any willingness to engage with interventions and treatment seemed limited to what the applicant considered would benefit him, rather than what could address and reduce risk to the public. It was considered that his risk remained unchanged since the judge passed sentence for the present offences. We consider that these are plainly matters of concern. In addition, we note that even now the applicant seeks to argue that the index offences did not cross the custody threshold. We also note that there is no reference in the report to any mental health issues. Nor has the applicant obtained any report on his mental condition from the medical team in the prison. In all these circumstances, we do not think that there is any substance in the criticism of the judge for failing to order a pre-sentence report. It was not necessary for her to do so either to determine that the custodial threshold was passed or to determine the length of the sentence. The fact that a pre-sentence report was not obtained in the Crown Court does not lend any support to the applicant's contention that the sentence imposed was wrong in principle or manifestly excessive. The applicant's complaint about the imposition of an extended licence period in breach of the European Convention on Human Rights is unarguable. Extended licence periods have been considered in other contexts: see, for example, R v BR [2003] EWCA Crim 2199 and R v RGB [2009] EWCA Crim 906 . The extended licence period is a preventative measure, rather than a punitive measure, which Parliament has provided for in the case of offenders who breach notification requirements imposed pursuant to Part 4 of the 2008 Act. There is nothing before us to suggest that the licence conditions would be so onerous or restrictive as to amount to detention outside of formal custody. We have also had regard to Article 8 of the Convention, which provides a right to respect for private life. Any interference must be in accordance with law and necessary for legitimate aims, such as national security or crime prevention. We are entirely satisfied that in all the circumstances of this case, an extended licence period was and is necessary and was proportionate in the case of the applicant. We have had regard to all the facts of the case, including the nature of the present offences, the applicant's previous conviction, and the conclusions expressed in the pre-sentence report. In a document dated 30 January 2026, the applicant submitted that the automatic one year extension of a prisoner's licence under section 278 of the 2020 Act is incompatible with Articles 5, 6, 8 and 14 of the ECHR, not just in the applicant's case but generally, and that a declaration of incompatibility should be made. This would raise additional issues and was not mentioned in the applicant's proposed grounds of appeal. It would be inappropriate to grant leave for this additional point to be taken so late in the proceedings. We also note that the authorities relied upon by the applicant relate to punishment and detention, which would not provide a basis for challenging the licence provision in section 278. Finally, we see nothing in Strasbourg or domestic jurisprudence which would support this additional ground. The respondent had referred to Roddis in a sentencing note prepared for the judge in the Crown Court. The prosecution was quite right to do so. In Roddis , the applicant had been sentenced to a term of three years' imprisonment for failing to comply with Part 4 notification requirements. He had been convicted after a trial. He had failed to provide details of four mobile phones and one bank card. He had previously been convicted of very serious terrorism offending. In refusing leave to appeal against sentence in Roddis , the single judge had made the following observations: "I do not agree that, even if the statutory maximum sentence is the same, failure to notify thereafter is (for sentencing purposes) in effect to be equated with failure to notify under section 91 of the Sexual Offences Act 2003: or, indeed, with breaches of a Sexual Harm Prevention Order. Terrorism is one of the gravest crimes. Compliance with notification requirements is vital in the interests of public safety. The applicant knew of his obligations but wilfully failed in important respects to comply with them on, it is to be stressed, five occasions. Firm and deterrent punishment was called for. There had been no pleas. A sentence of three years on that matter was not arguably excessive." In refusing the renewed application for leave to appeal in Roddis , the full court said that they entirely agreed with the remarks of the single judge. It is important to emphasise that neither prosecuting counsel nor the judge misused Roddis in the way contended for by the applicant. The observations of the single judge in that case, which the full court endorsed, were plainly relevant. The case was not treated as a guideline case; nor was it used as a direct comparator. The judge approached the present case on the basis of its own particular facts. When she gave the court's reasons for dismissing the appeal against conviction, the judge said that on 26 August 2021, it had been made clear to the applicant, and in subsequent communications, what his obligations were. He had provided some notifications on 3 September, but said that he did not have the bank account number or sort code for the Santander account. The judge was sure that he had the capacity and the ability to understand fully what his obligations were and what he was obliged to disclose. The court was sure that the police had made every attempt to meet the applicant and to give him the opportunity for clarification if he required it. He had signed a form on 3 September to say that he understood his obligations and confirmed that correct details had been provided. He said that the bank card for the Santander account was active but lost. The account number section on the form had been left blank as had the sort code section. Both sections were marked so as to indicate that they were mandatory fields, as indeed they were under the express terms of the legislation. On 30 March 2022, the police had searched the applicant's address and the address of his wife and children. They found bank statements for the account at his wife's address. They bore the account number and sort code. They had originally been sent to the applicant's address. The court was sure that the applicant had opened the statements and that he was instrumental in the statements being taken to his wife's address. He had known the account number and sort code and had deliberately failed to notify them. As for charge 2, the court was satisfied that the applicant had deliberately failed to notify that he was no longer able to use the vehicle in question – a further breach of the requirements. In the light of the way these conclusions were expressed, and given the fact that the judge had heard the evidence in the case, including evidence from the applicant, there is no basis for the applicant's argument that the judge was wrong to find that he had intentionally failed to provide the required information. Such a conclusion was open to the judge and she was well placed to come to a view about it. The fact, for example, that the bank statements had gone to the applicant's own address was very telling, as the judge explained. Nor is it arguable in our judgment that the judge failed to take account of what was advanced as the applicant's mitigation. In fact, we take the view that the judge was over generous. We do not see that the applicant's age provided him with any mitigation. He lived separately from his wife and that reduced the significance of the fact that he was her carer. She was able to look after the children at one address while he lived at another. We have not been shown any of the medical evidence which was before the Crown Court to undermine the judge's approach to sentencing. True it was that the applicant only had one previous conviction which was the conviction which had resulted in the imposition of the notification requirements, but the original offence was very serious and had also involved the applicant's failure to provide information to the police. As we have said, we consider that to be an aggravating feature. He had plainly not learned his lesson from the earlier proceedings. To say that the applicant had now learned how to comply with the notification requirements had to be set against the fact that the court was satisfied that he had already understood those requirements perfectly well but had deliberately failed to comply with them. In short, the applicant's personal mitigation was of very limited weight. Such as it was, the judge took it fully into account. We have given careful consideration to the judge's assessment of culpability and harm. The various points made by the applicant under ground 1 overlap with other grounds, such as grounds 5 and 6. We are satisfied that she was entitled to conclude that culpability for the first charge was high. There had been a deliberate failure over a substantial period of time to provide the required information and the court had been satisfied that the bank statements had been taken to the address of the applicant's wife on his initiative. This formed part of what the judge described as "the lengths you went to, to conceal the Santander account from the police". In addition, there was the breach in charge 2. Although she passed concurrent sentences, the judge was entitled to take account of the fact that there were two offences when assessing the applicant's overall culpability. We think that the judge was entitled to categorise this "as a high culpability case" (to use her own words). As regards harm, the judge said that the offending fell into "the medium high category". Harm is to be assessed by reference to harm which is actually caused, harm which is intended, and harm which the offence might foreseeably have caused: see "General guideline: overarching principles" and section 63 of the Sentencing Act 2020. We have no doubt that the judge was right to underline the importance for public safety of compliance with the notification requirements. Indeed, for that reason we do not agree with the judge's apparent willingness to accept the applicant's suggestion that the offences were victimless and the police were not obstructed and that these were mitigating factors. The objective of protecting the public is harmed if the requirements are not complied by an offender testing the limits or the efficacy of the notification regime. It has to be clearly understood that in the counter- terrorism context the requirements must be complied with or public safety will be put in jeopardy. Breaches of these particular requirements is a serious matter and the fact that a further specific offence does not come about does not indicate that the harm involved was not serious. If a particular crime does result, that would generally serve to make the harm more serious still. All the information covered by Part 4 of the 2008 Act is required so as to increase public safety by giving the authorities the material which the legislation requires at the times it specifies, so that it is available for the police to use as and when it becomes necessary. A delay in the provision of the required information may or may not cause actual harm. Even where it does not, the delay nevertheless involves potential or foreseeable harm. The information is required to facilitate the preventative or investigative process, should that become necessary and at the time that it becomes necessary. Many of the applicant's grounds seek to reargue the merits of the conviction and the findings made by the judge at the Crown Court. There has been no challenge to that conviction and there is no basis for challenging those findings here. For example, it cannot be argued that they were perverse. This was a case where the sentencing judge also sat in the court which re-heard and made decisions on the evidence on the appeal. This was not simply the more usual situation of a judge drawing inferences after a jury had convicted a defendant. As we have said, the applicant even goes so far as to suggest that the custody threshold was not passed in this case. However, in R v WJ , at [34] Andrews LJ analysed the statutory scheme and said that if an offence within Schedule 13, such as an offence under section 278, is committed, Parliament envisaged that a custodial sentence would usually be imposed, as the offences are all of a very serious nature (see also R v LF and DS [2016] EWCA Crim 561 ; [2016] 1 WLR 4432 , at [13]). The applicant's contention is not arguable. It was based in the main on his arguments about harm and culpability, which we have already addressed. But in addition the applicant has sought to rely upon a number of other points which could not conceivably begin to justify treating the index offences as not crossing the custody threshold or, alternatively, the sentence imposed as manifestly excessive or wrong in principle. It would be inappropriate to prolong this judgment by going through each one. Nevertheless, we have considered each and every one of those points. This judgment is not a guideline judgment and we are only concerned with this particular case. One set of facts with an unrepresented applicant does not provide a sufficient basis for broader consideration and analysis. We have taken account of the offences themselves, the applicant's culpability, the harm, the nature of the applicant's previous conviction and his personal mitigation. We also have in mind that the applicant contested his guilt so that there can be no credit for guilty pleas. The sentence was a firm one, as the judge said she intended it to be. But in our judgment, there are no grounds for saying that it was either manifestly excessive or wrong in principle. In these circumstances, and for all these reasons, the application for leave to appeal against sentence must be refused. It follows that no purpose would be served by granting the extension of time, and so we refuse that application as well. _______________________________ BAILII: Copyright Policy | Disclaimers | Privacy Policy | Feedback | Donate to BAILII