SENTENCING STATEMENTS

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HMA v Phillip Hendry

Nov 26, 2021

At the High Court at Glasgow, Judge McCormick sentenced Phillip Hendry to an Order for Lifelong Restriction after the offender pled guilty to sexually assaulting a woman he met on social media.

On sentencing Judge McCormick made the following statement in Court:

“Philip Hendry, on 26 January 2021, the day before your trial diet, you pleaded guilty to an amended charge (3) on the indictment. I heard the agreed narrative on 27 January 2021.

Charge (3) as amended involved a sexual assault on a woman whom you had met on social media six weeks beforehand and who you had met for the first time on 4 October 2019. This assault was perpetrated on the second occasion that you met, on 9 October 2019.

I will not rehearse the details but you used violence and sexually assaulted her while she was intoxicated, asleep and incapable of giving or withholding her consent. The assault took place within her home.

This offence is cast against the background of you having 89 previous convictions including for sexual offending, albeit at summary level.

At the time of this offence you were a registered sex offender until July 2025. You were the subject of a Sexual Offences Prevention Order until May 2024. You were subject to intensive monitoring and support due to the risk to the public.

On conviction I deferred sentence for a Criminal Justice Social Work Report. That report concluded that you posed a “very high risk of sexual offending” and invited me to consider an Order for Lifelong Restriction. I sought a Risk Assessment Report.

I have received a substantial risk assessment report prepared by a Consultant Clinical Forensic Psychologist. It assesses you as a high risk. The defence sought its own report which I have also had sight of.

It reaches a similar conclusion in relation to your high risk of violence and high risk of sexual violence.

Having considered all the information before me, including the plea in mitigation made by Mr Lenehan on your behalf, I am satisfied that the risk criteria set out in section 210E of the Criminal Procedure (Scotland) Act 1995 have been met.

Those criteria are that the nature of the offence to which you pleaded guilty, either in itself or as part of a pattern of behaviour, is such as to demonstrate that there is a likelihood that you, if at liberty, will seriously endanger the lives or physical or psychological wellbeing of members of the public at large. Having reached that conclusion I must make an Order for Lifelong Restriction.

Parliament has prescribed how I should fix the punishment part which is the period of time which must pass before you can apply for parole.

Taking into account the amended charge to which you pleaded guilty on this indictment coupled with the number and nature of your previous convictions, had I not been imposing an Order for Lifelong Restriction, I would have imposed a custodial term of 6 years as part of an extended sentence.

I am required by Parliament to ignore any period of confinement which may be necessary for the protection of the public and to determine the part of that period of imprisonment which would represent an appropriate period to satisfy the requirements of retribution and deterrence. That period is 5 years (60m).

I will follow the normal approach suggested in the legislation and reduce that period by one-half to take account of the effects of early release.

Accordingly the punishment part of your Order for Lifelong Restriction will be 30m which I will reduce by 2 months to reflect your plea albeit just prior to the trial diet. This period of 28m will be backdated to 11^th October 2019.

The sentence imposed is not a sentence of imprisonment of 28m. It is an Order for Lifelong Restriction which is a sentence of imprisonment for an indeterminate period, which shares some characteristics with a life sentence.

You will not be eligible to apply for parole until the punishment part has elapsed. It does not follow that you will then be released.

You will only be released from prison when the Parole Board considers that it is no longer necessary for the protection of the public that you continue to be held in prison.

You will be subject to the notification requirements of the Sexual Offences Act 2003 for an indefinite period.”

26 November 2021