Lord God Jose Mourinho wrote:
How often are sentences served consecutively? Isn't the normal practice to have all served at the same time? IMO it makes more sense to properly punish criminals for their crimes but as far as I was aware concurrent sentencing was how most people are dealt with.
It is fairly common for there to be consecutive sentences where there are multiple victims to enable those victims to know what the punishment is for the crimes against them individually.
In the case of the 15 year old, for example, it is clear from the sentencing remarks that Clifford got 4.5 years for those offences. That victim can now hopefully get some closure and move on in the certain knowledge of the sentence that her abuser will serve in relation to her.
Given that the judge said he would have passed a sentence of not less than 8 years for one particular count alone under modern guidelines then Clifford can consider himself lucky that it's the totality for all counts.