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England and Wales Court of Appeal (Criminal Division) Decisions


You are here: BAILII >> Databases >> England and Wales Court of Appeal (Criminal Division) Decisions >> Roach, R. v [2025] EWCA Crim 786 (05 June 2025)
URL: http://www.bailii.org/ew/cases/EWCA/Crim/2025/786.html
Cite as: [2025] EWCA Crim 786

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Neutral Citation Number: [2025] EWCA Crim 786
CASE NO: 202500521 A1

IN THE COURT OF APPEAL
CRIMINAL DIVISION
ON APPEAL FROM THE CROWN COURT AT SHEFFIELD
(HIS HONOUR JUDGE DAVID DIXON) (14XA1352824)

Royal Courts of Justice
Strand
London
WC2A 2LL
5 June 2025

B e f o r e :

LORD JUSTICE LEWIS
MR JUSTICE BRYAN
MRS JUSTICE HILL

____________________

REX

- v -

DANIEL ROACH

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Computer Aided Transcript of Epiq Europe Ltd,
Lower Ground, 46 Chancery Lane, London WC2A 1JE
Tel No: 020 7404 1400; Email: rcj@epiqglobal.co.uk (Official Shorthand Writers to the Court)

____________________

MR SAMUEL MAGHEE appeared on behalf of the Appellant
____________________

HTML VERSION OF JUDGMENT
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Crown Copyright ©

    LORD JUSTICE LEWIS:

  1. On 22 October 2024, in the Crown Court at Sheffield, the appellant, Daniel Roach (now aged 39) was sentenced to 27 months' imprisonment for an offence of breach of a restraining order. He appeals against that sentence with the leave of the single judge.
  2. The facts can be stated shortly. The background is that in September 2021 the appellant went to his parents' home and demanded a place to stay but he was refused access. He then damaged a garden gate. He was charged with that offence. He pleaded guilty and was sentenced for it. In addition, a restraining order was imposed which prevented him from contacting his parents. He broke that order repeatedly.
  3. Turning to this offence, on 21 September 2024 he went to his parents' home again in breach of the order. At about 4.20 pm the appellant's mother was at her home. She is aged 59 and she has health problems. She saw the appellant outside looking through the living room window. He was shouting abuse at his mother and stated that he needed help for mental health issues. His mother asked him to leave but he refused to go. His mother called 999 and asked for help to get her son to leave. The operator noted that the appellant's mother was distressed, but she said the situation did not merit the police officers going to the house.
  4. The appellant stayed there, outside the house, for about 4 hours, and his behaviour became increasingly erratic during that time. It caused his mother to make four more phone calls to the police to try to get help. At one stage she took him some food and gave him a coat to wear. He told his mother he had a Zombie knife with him and he said he was going to slit his throat. That led to his mother making another call to the police, and this time they did come. The appellant was arrested for being in breach of the restraining order which said he should not contact his parents. He was interviewed by police the following day in the presence of a solicitor and an appropriate adult. He said that he had formulated a plan to force police officers to attend so that he could get help from mental health services and in order to do that he had told his mother that he was in possession of a knife. He did not in fact have a knife.
  5. The appellant has 20 convictions for 36 offences. Most relevantly, he has been convicted seven times before this offence of breaching the restraining order. He has been sentenced sometimes to periods of 3 months in custody or 20 weeks in custody for some of those offences.
  6. There was a pre-sentence report and an addendum report prepared for the sentencing judge. The appellant was assessed as presenting a high risk of harm to known adults including his parents. The risk was assessed as the appellant being reckless or intentionally likely to cause physical, emotional and psychological harm as a result of his substance misuse and his violent, threatening and aggressive behaviour. His response to earlier periods of supervision had been poor and he had been recalled on two occasions for non-compliance with licence conditions and further offending.
  7. There was a victim impact statement from his mother. As we have said, she is 59 and she has health problems. She says that she is terrified of her son. She says that she feels like a prisoner in her own home and keeps the gate locked at all times so that her son cannot get in. She says she is afraid to go into the town centre in case she meets him. She says this, and it is sad to read: "He scares me, and I'm constantly in fear. I just want him to leave us alone."
  8. The sentencing judge set out the facts. He referred to what the appellant had put his parents through over recent years and the fact that the appellant had threatened his parents in various ways over the years, including threatening to petrol bomb their home. The judge referred to the Sentencing Council guidelines on breach of a restraining order. He found that the appellant's culpability fell into Category A and the harm was Category 2. Under the guidelines, the starting point for a Category A2 offence is 1 year's custody and there is a sentencing range which goes up to 2 years' custody. The judge referred to the fact that the appellant had, as we have said, seven previous convictions for breach of a restraining order. He considered that those convictions justified an upward increase in the sentence from the starting point. The judge noted that the appellant said he went to his parents' home to seek help, but the judge said the appellant could have sought help elsewhere and the need for help did not explain why he had to contact his parents in breach of the restraining order. The judge determined that a sentence of 3 years' imprisonment would be appropriate. As the appellant had, however, pleaded guilty in the Crown Court, he reduced that sentence by 25 percent and imposed a sentence of 27 months' imprisonment.
  9. In very clear, helpful and focused submissions on behalf of the appellant, Mr Maghee put forward four grounds of appeal.
    • First, he submits that the judge failed to have regard to the motivation of the appellant when he went to his parents' home, which was to seek help.

    • Secondly, he said that excessive weight had been given to the previous convictions.

    • Thirdly, he submitted that the judge either took account of the previous convictions when categorising the offence in terms of culpability as A or in deciding to move it to another category, namely A; and then having done used the convictions to do one of those two things, he then treated the convictions for a second time as an aggravating factor justifying an upwards increase in the sentence. That, he said, was unjustifiable double counting and resulted in too high a sentence.

    • Fourth, Mr Maghee submitted that the sentencing judge had given no explanation as to why he had moved above the top of the category range of 2 years' custody to a sentence of 3 years' custody before the reduction for the guilty plea.
  10. The position here, in our judgment, is that this offence was properly categorised as a Category A2 offence. It was Category A in terms of culpability because the conduct involved in this particular offence on that day (September 21, 2024) was very serious and was persistent on that day. The appellant was prohibited from contacting his parents and yet he was at the premises for four hours. He refused to leave when asked to do so and eventually he had to be removed by the police. During that period, he shouted abuse at his own mother, who was meant to be protected and safe in her own home. He said he had a knife and would kill himself. The circumstances were very serious. The length of time made the breach persistent. All those make the offence a Category A culpability offence. It is accepted that the harm is Category 2 harm. The starting point under the guidelines, therefore, for a Category A2 offence is 1 year's custody and the sentencing range goes up to 2 years' custody.
  11. There had to be an upward adjustment to reflect the previous convictions. There were seven previous offences of breach of the restraining order. That would justify increasing the sentence to somewhere in the region of about 20 months on the facts of this case. There would then be a reduction of 25 percent because of the guilty plea, and that would have resulted in a sentence of somewhere in the region of 15 months' imprisonment.
  12. We do not see any force in Grounds 1 of the appeal. The appellant's alleged motivation in breaching the restraining order does not begin to explain or excuse his behaviour on that day. The judge was right when he took the view that the order was there to protect the parents from contact, and the appellant could if he had wanted to get help have gone elsewhere. Instead, as we have said, he went to his parents' house. He was there for four hours; he refused to leave when asked; he shouted abuse at his own mother; and then said he had a knife and was going to kill himself.
  13. The weight given to the previous convictions did not involve double counting. The offence fell within Category A for culpability because of the appellant's conduct on the day. The conduct on the day was persistent (lasting over four hours) and it was very serious. That is why it was a Category A culpability. The previous convictions were separate and were additional and seriously aggravating factors, which merited a substantial increase from the starting point of 1 year. We do not see any merit in ground 3 of the appeal
  14. We do see force, however, in Mr Maghee's second and fourth grounds of appeal. Courts are required to follow the sentencing guidelines unless it would not be in the interests of justice to do so. Here, the sentencing range for an A2 offence went up to 2 years' custody. Although this was a serious offence and the appellant has caused untold harm to his parents, we do not see that there are factors which would justify moving the sentence to the top of the range, still less to increase it to 3 years (i.e. 1 year above the top of the range). As we have said, the appropriate sentence before the reduction for the guilty plea would be somewhere in the region of about 20 months. With the 25 percent reduction for the guilty plea, the appropriate sentence would be in the region of 15 months. We would therefore allow the appeal on this ground.
  15. We have considered whether the sentence could be suspended, and we have had regard to all relevant guidelines, including in particular the Sentencing Council guideline on the imposition of community and custodial sentences. We are satisfied that this offence crosses the custody threshold. We have had regard to the factors indicating when it would or would not be appropriate to suspend a sentence. Here, the appellant has a poor history of compliance with court orders. He presents a real risk to his parents. Those factors indicate that it would not be appropriate to suspend the sentence. There are not, in our judgment, any factors present which would indicate that a suspended sentence would be appropriate. We do not therefore consider it appropriate to suspend the sentence in this case.
  16. In summary, therefore, we allow the appeal. We quash the sentence of 27 months' imprisonment and we substitute a sentence of 15 months' imprisonment.

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