SENTENCING STATEMENTS

On sentencing Lord Arthurson made the following remarks in court:

"Jordan James Rouse, on 30 January 2026 at Glasgow High Court you tendered pleas of guilty to a section 76 indictment libelling charges of theft, a contravention of section 1 of the Domestic Abuse (Scotland) Act 2018, a contravention of section 38(1) of the Criminal Justice and Licensing (Scotland) Act 2010, assault and two charges of assault to injury and danger of life.

You are presently aged 34.  You have to date accrued 11 groups of previous convictions and served six custodial sentences.  Three of your previous convictions have been at sheriff and jury level, and five have been domestically aggravated.  Two convictions refer to the involvement of weapons, namely a bottle and a glass.  I further note that an unexpired portion period potentially applies in this case.

On 4 June 2025, having stolen a car, including the blue badge of the registered keeper, you brandished a machete at your partner, who was undergoing chemotherapy and radiotherapy treatments, used your weight to immobilise her, repeatedly placed your hands around her neck, applying pressure and thus restricting her breathing, and bit her on the lower left side of her face, all to her injury and the danger of her life.  I should add at this point that on a previous occasion, on 19 March 2025, you had placed your foot on her neck and compressed it.  This latter incident is one of several which feature in the statutory course of abusive domestic behaviour charge, which has a libel period of 16 July 2024 through to 4 June 2025.

The police having been called, on 4 June 2025, you armed yourself with a knife, uttered threats to make a petrol bomb and filled a bottle with petrol.  You then assaulted a female police officer with a broom, forcibly causing her to fall to the ground.  You further assaulted a male officer, striking him on the head with a broom, biting him on the body, compressed his neck thus restricting his breathing all to his injury and to the danger of his life.  Much of this offending occurred while you were heavily intoxicated, on your own account, by way of alcohol and substance misuse.

I have listened with care to the submissions in mitigation advanced this afternoon on your behalf by your counsel, and note in particular what has been said by her regarding the timing of your pleas and the acceptance by you of responsibility for your criminal conduct in these matters; your positive employment history; your self-medication for your declining mental health issues; and your past trauma and misuse of alcohol and drugs, which issues you now wish to address, as you seek a different life on your future release.

In the whole circumstances, it is plain that only a substantial custodial disposal is appropriate in this case.  Weapons used by you in this course of criminal conduct included a machete, a knife, a broom and a makeshift petrol bomb.  You compressed the neck of two people, to the danger of their lives, one being a police officer acting in the course of his duties.  You have an appalling criminal record, particularly in respect of domestic offending and violence generally.  It is apparent that the normal period of licence would not be adequate to protect the public from serious harm from you when you are in due course released after prison into the community.  You have indeed been assessed as presenting a maximum risk of reoffending.

You will accordingly today be made the subject of an extended sentence, which sentence will be in two parts.  The first part will be custodial.  The second part will take the form of an extension period, when you will be under supervision while on licence in the community.  The conditions of your licence will be fixed by Scottish Ministers.  If you fail to comply with these licence conditions during the extension period, your licence will be revoked and you may be returned to custody for a further period in respect of this indictment.  The court also has the power to deal with you if you commit a further offence after your release from the custodial part of this sentence while you are on licence and under supervision.

Turning to the detailed terms of the disposal of this indictment, on charge one you will serve a period of imprisonment of 12 months, discounted from a period of 18 months due to the timing of your guilty plea.  Concurrent with that sentence, you will on charge four serve a period of 2 years imprisonment, duly discounted from a period of 3 years. Concurrent with these sentences you will, on an in cumulo basis, on charges two, three, five and six, serve an extended sentence of 10 years duration, with a custodial term of 7 years, reduced from a notional headline custodial period of 10 years due to the timing and utility of your early pleas, and thereafter an extension period of 3 years.  Had I been sentencing you on each of the extended sentence charges separately, you would have received notional headline custodial disposals of 3 years on charge two, 18 months on charge five, 4 years on charge three and 4 years on charge six.  Taking into account, however, the important sentencing principle of totality in this exercise, I have reduced the notional headline tariff to the said period of 10 years.

For completeness, I confirm that, rather than making a formal section 16 return order in respect of the unexpired portion which is available to the court, the concurrent sentences imposed by the court today will not be backdated to the date of your first appearance on petition and remand into custody in these proceedings, namely 5 June 2025, but will instead run from the agreed date of 31 August 2025."

19 March 2026