SENTENCING STATEMENTS

On sentencing, Lord Arthurson said:

"Kyle Bryce, on 21 January 2025, at Glasgow High Court, you tendered pleas of guilty to a two charge section 76 indictment libelling, first, in respect of your former partner, at an address at Queens Court, Dunoon, on 2 May 2024, a charge of assault to severe injury, permanent impairment and danger of life and attempted murder, and, second, in respect of a female employee at Strachur Filling Station later that same day, a charge of assault to injury.

On the afternoon of 2 May 2024, following an argument with the complainer, your former partner, in her home, you, on your own account of events, locked two children, then aged 2 and 5, in a bedroom before striking the complainer on the head with a hammer, causing her to fall to the kitchen floor.  Thereafter, you struck her repeatedly on the head with the hammer, thereby inflicting devastating injuries upon her.  You left her in the kitchen and proceeded to leave the house by car, taking the children with you.  Knowing that the complainer was severely injured, you left her alone within the house and locked the doors to the property, thus delaying her obtaining essential medical assistance from the paramedics who in due attended.  It was only when the complainer’s mother was contacted that access could be gained, by use of a spare key.

The paramedics found within the property the complainer lying on the kitchen floor alongside a large amount of blood and vomit.  On arrival at Cowal Community Hospital, the complainer had a Glasgow Coma Scale score of 6, indicative of severe brain injury.  Her condition was life‑threatening.  She had sustained significant blood loss.  She was transferred to the Queen Elizabeth University Hospital, Glasgow, where she was intubated, anaesthetised and underwent CT scans which disclosed the following injuries:  a comminuted right skull fracture, which also resulted in injuries to the right middle ear;  an occipital condyle fracture;  traumatic bilateral subarachnoid haemorrhage involving the frontal lobes;  and soft tissue facial injuries.

On 28 May 2024 the complainer was transferred to the neurorehabilitation unit at Inverclyde Royal Hospital.  On 21 November 2024 the complainer was discharged and moved back home. A routine has developed whereby the complainer’s mother lives with her at the complainer’s home for several days and then the complainer lives with her mother in her mother’s home for several days. She will not fully recover from the brain injury inflicted upon her. She has permanently impaired cognitive functioning.  She is at risk of developing early onset dementia.  She has permanent hearing loss in her right ear.  She will require supported accommodation as she cannot live independently.  Her children will require to remain living with their grandparents, as the complainer is and will not be able to resume their full‑time care.

Later on 2 May 2024 at the Strachur service station, a courageous employee, showing considerable initiative, removed your car keys from your car ignition, as you were about to drive away, having left the distressed young children with her.  You grabbed her by the body, pulled her out of the shop door to the ground, placed your arm around her neck and compressed her neck, all while threatening to choke her to death.  Footage of this incident, partially visible, was played in court on the date of your pleas of guilty being tendered.

You are now aged 38 and have no previous convictions.  A criminal justice social work report and risk assessment have been prepared in respect of you.  I have also considered carefully a number of character testimonials submitted this morning on your behalf. In addition, your senior counsel has this morning advanced certain submissions in mitigation on your behalf.  I take all of this material into account, and note in particular what has been said regarding your previous pro-social background, your lack of any prior offending, your expressed remorse, your supportive family, your early plea of guilty, the immediate background to the primary index offence and your expression of apology to the complainer in charge two at the time of that offence.

I now turn to disposal.

The principal charge on the present indictment can be characterised as extreme instrumental domestic violence against a former partner, all in her own home, and while two young children were in the house, on your account having been locked by you in a room before you perpetrated this crime, potentially on one view indicating some element of premeditation on your part.  There is no doubt that you intended to kill your victim.  Indeed, your remarks in the aftermath disclose that you thought that you had killed her.  

Let me be crystal clear.  You perpetrated a sustained, frenzied and wholly murderous attack upon your victim with a hammer, having on your own account locked two children in a room beforehand, and, on your departure having left your victim severely injured in the kitchen alone, lying in her own blood and vomit. On departure, you locked the house doors, thereby delaying emergency medical services from accessing the scene.  Your victim will never again live a normal life, or perhaps anything even remotely resembling that.  The damage inflicted upon her by you has been permanent and life‑changing.  You have wrecked her life and damaged irrevocably also the lives of the children, all through your appalling criminal actions on 2 May last year.  I have read a detailed victim impact statement, which required to be prepared by the complainer’s mother.  It is powerful, eloquent and frankly heart‑rending.

The culpability of your criminal conduct in respect of charge one and the consequent harm inflicted by you upon your victim in this case are properly to be located at the very highest levels of gravity, even for crimes of a similar nature seen in these courts.  This was a crime as close to murder as the offence libelled in the charge can possibly be.  I propose to sentence you accordingly.  

On charge one I have selected a headline sentence of 16 years imprisonment. Charge two, involving as it did, albeit on the same day, a different complainer at a different location, will attract a consecutive headline custodial sentence of 3 years. Taking into account the important sentencing principle of totality, I propose, however, to fix a notional headline in cumulo tariff of 18 years in respect of charges one and two on this indictment. For the purposes of the court minutes, I should add that I attribute 1 year of that in cumulo headline figure to the aggravation libelled in charge one in terms of section 1 of the Abusive Behaviour and Sexual Harm (Scotland) Act 2016.  

Your plea of guilty, tendered by way of section 76 indictment, requires of course to attract some measure of early plea reduction.  Having so characterised what I consider to be the exceptional gravity of the primary index offence in this case and thereafter fixed the said notional in cumulo headline figure for both charges, having taken into account the totality principle, I require now to consider the appropriate level of discount to be applied to that headline figure.  The events which we have been discussing occurred on 2 May 2024. I note that the section 76 letter dated 20 November 2024 was intimated to the Crown on 4 December 2024. In the whole circumstances before the court, I propose, in the exercise of my discretion, to allow a discount of 4 years on the said notional headline in cumulo sentence already mentioned. You will therefore serve on this indictment, on an in cumulo basis, a determinate sentence of 14 years imprisonment. This sentence will be backdated to 6 May 2024, being the date of your initial remand into custody in these proceedings.

Finally, on unopposed Crown motion, I pronounce a non-harassment order in respect of your victim in charge one.  You will not approach or contact, or attempt so to do, by any means whatsoever or by way of third parties, the complainer named in charge one, all for an indefinite period."