SENTENCING STATEMENTS

On sentencing Sheriff Komorowski made the following remarks in court: 

" You have been convicted by a jury of threatening, abusive and violent behaviour towards your then partner, the mother of your child, and of threatening behaviour towards others, and to have breached bail conditions intended to protect a possible victim of crime from further offending and to safeguard the course of justice. Your violence includes compressing your then partner’s neck and restricting her breathing, and twisting her arm behind her back, as well as various threats of violence, including threats uttered to get her to write e-mails to your lawyer to support your defence.

You are aged 24 years old. You have a variety of previous convictions. So far as physical violence is concerned: You have been previously convicted, as a 16 year old, for assault to injury, as a 17 year old, for assault to injury and breach of bail, when 19 years old for assault, and when 22 years old on two occasions for assault, once to severe injury and once to injury, both committed whilst on bail, and as a 23 year old man for assault to injury whilst on bail. When you were convicted does not necessarily reflect closely when the offences were committed, so that last offence was committed by you when you were 19 years old. But irrespective of exactly when the violence occurred, your record indicates a general propensity for violence. The offending in this indictment covers a period when you were aged between 21 and 24. There has also been other offending. So far, punishments other than detention have initially been imposed, though you have breached a community payback order on several occasions, the most recent breaches resulting in a short period of imprisonment.

Despite your youth, your troubled childhood and your poor mental health, and the recognition of wrongdoing, albeit limited, in your offers of pleas of guilty to some of what was alleged, I consider that no method of dealing with you other than imprisonment is appropriate, having regard to the history of your offending, and the gravity of the offences of which you have been convicted by the jury. I consider a substantial prison sentence is necessary. The first of your prison sentences will run from when you were most recently taken into custody, being 6 March 2024.

You are currently subject to a compulsory supervision order for another assault. Given the penalties I will be imposing following the convictions by the jury, that order will no longer be workable, and it is in the interests of justice that I revoke it due to that change in circumstances arising since the order was made. The order was for an assault on Christmas Day 2019, when you were 19 years old, when you punched another woman, who was then your partner. You had been arguing. You were told to leave, but as you were leaving you got in a scuffle with her, struck her on the mouth, causing her mouth to bleed.

On the basis that no other means of dealing with you is appropriate, I sentence you to two months' imprisonment. Rather describe the appropriate adjustments for the bail aggravation and the plea of guilty at a trial diet, given that one would more or less cancel out the other, I shall simply impose the two month sentence without adjustment.

I will impose a collection of sentences for the matters which were the subject of the jury trial, and the collection of these sentences will run consecutively, from the end of the sentence I have just described for the 2019 assault.

Charge 1 covers the conduct in charges 3 and 6; I will deal with charges 3 and 6 first and the sentences for those charges will run alongside the sentence I will impose for charge 1. I will come back to charge 1 in a few moments.

For charge 3, which concerns threatening and abusive behaviour, in particular threats of violence, at the occasion of the registration of your daughter’s birth, I sentence you to 12 weeks’ imprisonment (of which two weeks is an aggravation for bail). That concerned brazen threats of violence in public, and it is appropriate that a substantial punishment be imposed for that threatening behaviour in itself.

Charge 6 concerns threatening phone calls which were made to your then partner or former partner to get her to write e-mails to your lawyer, retracting her allegations against you and asking for proceedings to be dropped. The court and the Crown are often told by defence solicitors of contact with them (such as by e-mail) by alleged victims of domestic abuse, asking for proceedings to be dropped or for special bail conditions to be removed. Where such communications have been obtained by threats, in circumstances that might disrupt, prejudice or put an end to proceedings for serious domestic abuse, I consider that a very severe penalty is required as a deterrent, in addition to anything imposed for the main offending. I consider that a substantial prison sentence for this kind of breach of bail will often be appropriate. Anything less risks grave harm to the administration of justice, in particular the prosecution and prevention of domestic violence. Those accused of such crimes must realise they will make matters much worse for themselves if they breach their special bail conditions in order to manipulate the proceedings. On this charge I will impose the maximum sentence available to me for breach of bail of one year’s imprisonment. That will run consecutive to charge 3.

Charge 1 is the charge of domestic abuse of your partner. As I have said, the conduct set out there overlaps with the conduct covered by charges 3 and 6. The sentence I impose will be based on the sentences I consider appropriate for those other charges, with an addition to reflect the violence, and other abuse, not already dealt with. I will impose a sentence of 29 months imprisonment on charge 1. Because of the overlap with charges 3 and 6, the sentences for those charges will run concurrently with charge 1. The sentence on charge 1 includes a 1 month aggravation for the abuse being committed in the presence of your infant daughter, and a two month aggravation for the breach of bail: you were subject to three bail orders at the time and have offended before whilst on bail.

Charge 2, for threats of violence towards police officers, I sentence you to two months’ imprisonment consecutive to charge 1.

For charge 5, because of the unusual circumstances in which the offence was committed, which your lawyer reminded me of this morning, I shall admonish you.

Accordingly the sentence on the complaint is two months.

The sentence on the indictment:

On charge 1 is 29 months (which includes 1 month for the domestic aggravation and 2 months for the bail aggravation).

On charge 2 is two months to run consecutive to charge 1,

On charge 3 is 12 weeks imprisonment (which includes two weeks for the bail aggravation), to run concurrently with the sentence on charge 1.

On charge 5 is an admonition.

On charge 6 is twelve months’ imprisonment, to run consecutive to the sentence on charge 3 and thus concurrently with the sentence on charge 1.

With an overall sentence on the indictment of 31 months.

That is a substantial sentence, contributed to a substantial extent because of the threats of violence made to your former partner in breach of bail, which secured the e-mails to your lawyer essentially asking for the prosecution to be dropped, which, as I have said, accounts for 12 months of that sentence.

In sentencing a young offender, account must be taken of immaturity, impulsivity and the possibility of reform. It might be you have a degree of impulsiveness from a personality disorder, quite aside from your mental maturity, though you have chosen to take drugs of a kind that will have contributed to your conduct. Impulsivity itself can also indicate a risk to the public. To the extent that punishment ought to be mitigated due to your immaturity, the risk to women borne from your lack of self-control is a countervailing consideration. Efforts to deal with your violence without detention have been tried and have failed. The sentence should reflect the need to protect the public. Having regard to the need for public protection, I consider that the overall length of the sentences as a whole (of 33 months) across complaint and indictment,is not excessive.

Given your history of violence and offending whilst on bail, I also consider the risk of impulsive violent behaviour upon release to be such as to necessitate further steps to safeguard your former partner and the public generally from serious harm.

I shall impose a supervised release order on you to last for twelve months to run from your release. A requirement of the order will be that you inform your supervising officer of any new romantic or sexual relationships you enter. The supervising officer might make other requirements of you or ask the court to impose requirements. If you breach any requirements you could be returned to prison for the period equal to the period between the date of breach and the end of the order.

I shall also impose a non-harassment order in respect of Crown Witness 1 for life. The effect of that order will mean that any arrangements to see your daughter will require to be made through a third party, such as a social worker.