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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 >> Chishti, R. v [2025] EWCA Crim 439 (19 March 2025)
URL: http://www.bailii.org/ew/cases/EWCA/Crim/2025/439.html
Cite as: [2025] EWCA Crim 439

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Neutral Citation Number: [2025] EWCA Crim 439
CASE NO 202402803/A5

IN THE COURT OF APPEAL
CRIMINAL DIVISION
ON APPEAL FROM THE CROWN COURT AT ISLEWORTH
THE RECORDER OF THE ROYAL BOROUGH OF KENSINGTON AND CHELSEA CP No: 01FH1029023

Royal Courts of Justice
Strand
London
WC2A 2LL
19 March 2025

B e f o r e :

LORD JUSTICE POPPLEWELL
MR JUSTICE HILLIARD
HIS HONOUR JUDGE LEES
(Sitting as a Judge of the CACD)

____________________

REX
- v -
SYED CHISHTI

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

____________________

MR S MURPHY appeared on behalf of the Applicant
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HTML VERSION OF JUDGMENT
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Crown Copyright ©

  1. MR JUSTICE HILLIARD: On 7 February 2024, in the Crown Court at Isleworth, the appellant, then aged 54, pleaded guilty on re-arraignment to two offences of stalking, causing serious alarm or distress. On 24 April 2024, he was sentenced to consecutive terms of 30 months' imprisonment on each count, making a total of five years' imprisonment. A restraining order was made until further order.
  2. He now renews applications for an extension of time of 72 days and for leave to appeal against sentence after refusal by the single judge.
  3. The facts of the case were as follows. Over a number of years, the applicant stalked Ms Khan. The applicant and Ms Khan had met in 2014 when they worked together at Barclays Bank. The applicant was her supervisor. She reported unprofessional behaviour by the applicant which led to the applicant's resignation. He then continued to contact her between 2014 and 2016, having had access to her contact details from his employment at Barclays.
  4. On 6 January 2015, the applicant received a verbal harassment warning from the police which stipulated that he was not to contact Ms Khan directly or indirectly. In defiance of this warning, the applicant sent her 100 red roses, cards and presents. He repeatedly contacted her by telephone and sent her messages in which he said he hoped they would be together. He also repeatedly contacted her family. He had his mother contact her mother in an attempt to arrange their marriage and attended her sister's work place having found it on LinkedIn. In 2016, he received a caution for harassment of Ms Khan.
  5. Count 1 reflected a course of stalking causing serious alarm or distress committed against Ms Khan between January 2021 and December 2022. The applicant repeatedly sent her unwanted messages on social media, made threats to destroy her family's reputation in the United Kingdom and Pakistan, threatened to attend her parents' address if she refused to meet him, contacted her cousins on social media and sent unwanted messages, including sexually explicit messages addressed to her mother, and persistent emails to her father.
  6. In 2021, the applicant contacted her and told her that the police caution had expired. He repeatedly contacted her parents. His communications included very explicit sexual content. She began receiving telephone calls from private telephone numbers. The applicant used different social media applications including WhatsApp and Telegram to contact her and other members of her family. Messages sent to Ms Khan's cousins included love songs and descriptions of how he and Ms Khan were meant to be together.
  7. In October 2022, the applicant contacted her on WhatsApp. He sent her mother explicit text messages, stating that he would like to have sex with Ms Khan in various locations. He sent messages with photographs of houses and the comment that he would live there with Ms Khan. He threatened to visit her parents' home if she did not meet him in December 2022 for her birthday. He made threats to go to the media and destroy the reputation of Ms Khan and her family in Pakistan. The escalation in this behaviour frightened Ms Khan and made her scared to leave her house. The applicant was arrested in January 2023 and released on bail.
  8. Count 2 reflected a further period of stalking committed against her between July 2023 and October 2023. During this period, the applicant communicated with people known to Ms Khan, arranged to meet a relation of hers, set up a business meeting with her father and sent a booking receipt to her parents, having booked a stay with them named as guests. The applicant sent copies of a letter via social media and email to Ms Khan, her parents and brother, alleging that she had engaged in sexual impropriety and fraudulent behaviour.
  9. Ms Khan made a victim personal statement in which she said that the applicant's conduct had left her at breaking point, so much so that she posed a risk to herself. She had resigned twice from employment.
  10. The applicant had no previous convictions but he had the caution from 2016 and a caution in 2021 for sending a communication of an indecent or offensive nature to his sister.
  11. A pre-sentence report suggested that at times the applicant had sought to minimise the gravity of his actions. A psychiatric report said that the applicant satisfied the criteria for recurrent depressive disorder although he was not suffering from a depressive episode when seen by the psychiatrist. If he had been experiencing a depressive episode when he offended, it was said that that may have impacted his judgment.
  12. When he passed sentence, the judge said that he would do so in accordance with the basis of plea which the applicant had submitted. The judge was satisfied that sexual matters had caused Ms Khan particular distress. She had been unable to work and had expressed suicidal thoughts. He said that the two counts were separated in time by an arrest and by bail conditions. He said that there were many elements of high culpability. The conduct was intended to maximise fear and distress; there was a high degree of planning and sophistication in, for example, efforts to obtain contact details; there were persistent actions over a long period. These elements were present, he said, in combinations that justified treating culpability as very high. He said that responsibility was not substantially reduced by mental disorder.
  13. The judge said that the starting point in the sentencing guidelines for each offence was one of five years' imprisonment because there was very high culpability and Category 1 harm with very serious distress and lifestyle changes. The judge said that he took account of the applicant's previous character, some evidence of remorse and the contents of the psychiatric report.
  14. The judge concluded that after a trial the sentence on each count would have been one of four-and-a-half years' imprisonment. Credit for plea would be allowed at 15 per cent, resulting in a sentence of three years and nine months' imprisonment on each count. He said that consecutive sentences were inevitable because the applicant had resumed the offending after he had been arrested and bailed. Each sentence would be reduced to 30 months' imprisonment on account of totality.
  15. It is now argued that the judge attached too much weight to the victim's fear that she might be subject to physical violence, that he did not take sufficient account of the psychiatric report and that he took too high a starting point in respect of count 2.
  16. Mr Murphy has appeared for the applicant today and we are grateful to him for his well-judged submissions.
  17. In our judgment, the judge was entitled to put the case into Category 1 for harm because of the very serious distress caused. Ms Khan had entertained suicidal thoughts. She had also had to leave her employment on two occasions. As to culpability, the guideline specifically provides that a combination of high culpability B factors can elevate a case to very high culpability A. It was open to the judge to conclude that the applicant had intended to maximise fear or distress, that there was a high degree of planning and that there had been persistent action over a prolonged period. It was also open to him to conclude that the combination of culpability factors in each count constituted very high culpability.
  18. Any concern that Ms Khan had about the possibility of violence towards her from other people because of sexual comments which the applicant had made could properly be taken into account. In his basis of plea, the applicant said that he did not agree that his behaviour might have caused others to use violence against her. Her concerns and his beliefs are different things. True it is that at one point the judge said that the applicant had been conscious that Ms Khan might fear violence, but he then went on immediately to say that he would sentence in accordance with the applicant's basis of plea.
  19. The judge expressly took account of the psychiatric report. The report said that a depressive episode may have impacted the applicant's judgment but it was for the judge to determine whether it had in fact done so to any significant degree. He was entitled to conclude that it had not done so. The judge might have pointed out that the nature of the applicant's conduct went far beyond anything which could sensibly be described as the exercise of faulty or flawed judgment.
  20. In any event, notwithstanding Mr Murphy's submissions, the eventual sentence for each count leaves us in no doubt that the judge did take proper account of such mitigation as was available to the applicant. In truth, the available mitigation was very limited. Although the conduct in count 2 was of a shorter duration than the conduct in count 1, it occurred after the applicant had been arrested and released on bail. That was a very significant aggravating feature and must have made it very clear to the applicant that what he was doing was wrong. He freely chose to ignore that warning.
  21. Because there is no merit in any of the grounds of appeal, no purpose would be served in granting the extension of time, even if it could be justified. In those circumstances, and for these reasons, these renewed applications must be refused.

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