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English and Welsh Courts - Miscellaneous
You are here: BAILII >> Databases >> English and Welsh Courts - Miscellaneous >> Birmingham City Council v Khatoon [2015] EW Misc B13 (CC) (05 June 2015)
URL: http://www.bailii.org/ew/cases/Misc/2015/B13.html
Cite as: [2015] EW Misc B13 (CC)
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33 Bull Street Birmingham B4 6DS |
||
B e f o r e :
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| BIRMINGHAM CITY COUNCIL | Claimant | |
| -v- | ||
| MISS SAMIYA KHATOON | Defendant |
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1st Floor, Quality House, 6-9 Quality Court, Chancery Lane, London WC2A 1HP
Telephone No: 020 7067 2900. Fax No: 020 7831 6864
The Defendant appeared in person
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Crown Copyright ©
- This is an application that the Defendant, Samiya Khatoon, be committed to prison for three breaches of an antisocial behaviour injunction.
- The Claimant in the proceedings is Birmingham City Council and they are seeking an order that the Defendant is committed to prison for those three breaches.
- The Claimant has been represented by a barrister today and the Defendant, Miss Khatoon, appears in person. She has been remanded in custody at a previous hearing. She has appeared today, escorted, as she has been produced from custody for the purposes of today's hearing.
- She is acting in person and on previous appearances declined the opportunity for legal representation.
- I appreciate that there are practical difficulties nowadays in getting public funding for representation in connection with committal applications. Public funding for a committal application is no longer treated as civil legal aid and therefore representation would be provided by solicitors who have a criminal contract under the criminal legal aid provisions. It is still possible for solicitors who have a civil contract, in some circumstances, to provide representation, but they would need to get the specific authority from the legal aid, the public funding body, to enable them to do so.
- Miss Khatoon had been represented at earlier stages of the proceedings, but not in relation to this committal application. She was represented in respect of an earlier committal application and an appeal that followed on from that.
- Miss Khatoon has been fairly reticent today when I asked her about legal representation. She has not invited me to put off today's hearing so that she could obtain legal representation. I am satisfied that she has had opportunity to obtain legal representation up to today.
- The injunction that was made, on the application of Birmingham City Council, was an injunction that was made on 8th January 2015. The court, through His Honour Judge Worster, made an order that had three provisions in it. There was a provision that Miss Khatoon shall not use or threaten to use violence to Hussain Iqbal or Terrina Hughes or any resident or visitor to Banford Road or Banford Avenue, Birmingham. She was not to cause nuisance and annoyance to any resident or visitor to Banford Road or Banford Avenue by, but not limited to, fighting, shouting, swearing, banging or using racist abuse. She was she was not to enter Banford Road or Banford Avenue, Birmingham.
- It is only the third provision that is relevant for today's purposes. The court attached a power of arrest to those three provisions.
- The city council, as the applicant, alleges that Miss Khatoon breached that injunction in three respects: on 14th May 2015, that she visited 8 Banford Avenue and that that was a breach of paragraph 3; that on 24th May 2015 she entered and remained in Banford Avenue and that was a breach of paragraph 3 of the order; that on Tuesday, 26th May 2015 she entered and remained in Banford Avenue in breach of paragraph 3 of the order.
- They are no longer relying on the allegation of breach set out in paragraph 3 of the committal notice and I do not need to refer to paragraph 3.
- I have evidence before the court in the form of witness statements from P.C. Stuart Lancaster, P.C. Jonathon Cahill, Hussain Iqbal, Terrina Hughes and temporary Police Sergeant Michael O'Reilly. So that evidence is before the court.
- Miss Khatoon has admitted the three breaches that are now relied on. She admitted two of the breaches (that is the breaches on 24th May and on 26th May) when the matter was before the court on an earlier occasion and she has admitted the breach on 14th May today.
- There is a complication as far as the breach on 14th May 2015 is concerned, in that she was in error dealt with by the magistrates' court for that breach. It was an error because the case was presented to the magistrates' court as a breach of an ASBO (an antisocial behaviour order) and the magistrates fined her £55 for that breach and also made an order that she was to pay £180 costs.
- That order of the magistrates was an order that they had no jurisdiction to make. That it is an order that should be set aside and someone (and it cannot be me) needs to take steps to have that order set aside.
- Although it was dealt with by the magistrates' court, it is still legitimate for me to deal with that breach as a matter before this court, as it is a breach of a civil injunction.
- Miss Khatoon was arrested for that breach on 14th May 2015. She was released on 15th May 2015, so that is one day that she has spent in custody. She was arrested in respect of the subsequent breaches on 27th May 2015 and remanded in custody up to today (5th June 2015). That is another nine days in custody. Therefore the total amount of time spent in custody as a result of the arrest and the remands in respect of these breaches is ten days. That is a period of time that I will take into account in due course.
- These breaches are not the first breaches of the injunction. On 19th December 2014 she was dealt with by District Judge Gibson in respect of two breaches of what was the interim injunction. District Judge Gibson imposed a suspended committal order. The two breaches at that stage, as found by the court, were that she had used or threatened to use violence to Hussain Iqbal or Terrina Hughes. She was in breach of the provision that said that she was not to use or threaten to use violence to Hussain Iqbal or Terrina Hughes or any resident or visitor to Banford Road or Banford Avenue. She was found to be in breach of that. The sentence imposed was a sentence of imprisonment of twenty-eight days which was suspended until 8th January 2016.
- She was also found to be in breach of clause 2 of the injunction, which was the provision that she was not to cause nuisance or annoyance to any resident or visitor to Banford Road or Banford Avenue by, but not limited to, fighting, swearing, shouting, banging or using racist abuse. In respect of that breach she was sentenced to fourteen days suspended until 8th January 2016. The two sentences were to run concurrently, but they were suspended on terms that the sentences would not be put in force if during that time the contemnor complied with the following terms, namely paragraphs 1 and 2 of the interim injunction dated 15th August 2014.
- Those were the terms of the breaches and the sentence imposed on 19th December 2014.
- Miss Khatoon was further dealt with by the court on 13th February 2015 and she was dealt with on that occasion by District Judge Shorthose. He found that she was in breach of the injunction on three occasions. The wording says that the three breaches were as alleged at paragraph 5 of the committal notice dated 23rd January 2015, save that the Defendant denied kicking, banging on the front door of 8 Banford Avenue and the Claimant withdrew that allegation.
- The sentence imposed in respect of those three breaches was twenty-six weeks for each of the three breaches to run concurrently. The judge on that occasion also activated the suspended committal order. So following on from that order, from 13th February 2015, Miss Khatoon started her sentence.
- Her sentence came to an end on 14th May. She was released on 14th May and immediately (or very shortly thereafter) she breached the injunction by going to 8 Banford Avenue. She went to 8 Banford Avenue, she says in a written note that she has handed to me (and which I read out) because:
- She also says in the note: "I am really sorry for attending 8 Banford Avenue."
- On the one hand this emphasises the seriousness of matters in that she breached the injunction on the day that she was released from prison. That highlights the seriousness of the breach. On the other hand she puts forward some points in mitigation as to why she did it. However it was still a clear breach.
- Then after 14th May there were two other occasions when she breached the order by going to Banford Avenue. Two separate occasions on 24th May and 26th May. She would have known, quite clearly, that she was in breach of the injunction in going to Banford Avenue. It is a clear breach of the provisions of the injunction.
- I am faced with a situation where, in the past, the court has already imposed a suspended prison sentence which has been activated. The court has imposed a further sentence for further breaches. She then committed three further breaches of the injunction within a very short time of being released.
- Clearly, sentencing anybody to prison is a very serious step and it is not a step that the court should take lightly. It means that the person sent to prison is deprived of their liberty for whatever period of time they have to serve. It should only be used as a matter of last resort, but it is important to emphasise that there have been the previous proceedings for committal, the previous sentence that was imposed, the previous sentence that she has served, and still three clear and obvious breaches of the injunction.
- She has not been represented today. I do have to weigh up what might have been put forward in mitigation and emphasise the point that sending people to prison is not a step that should be taken lightly. I highlight that. I recognise that.
- I also recognise that on 14th May she felt that, on release, she needed to see her mother and her sister, but of course alternative arrangements could have been made that did not involve her breaking the injunction. She has put in her note that she does not feel that she should go to prison. She does apologise for the breach. Those are points in her favour, but I am still left with the situation where there are clear and serious breaches of the clear terms of the injunction.
- I consider that a term of imprisonment is inevitable, so I would like you to stand up now, please, Miss Khatoon. As I have just said, because of the history and because I am now dealing with three clear breaches, then a further term of imprisonment is inevitable. That will of course, I hope, highlight to you when you are next released, the importance of keeping to the terms of the injunction. I do not want you to be faced with the prospect of continually breaching the injunction and continually being sent to prison. You have to get to the point where you need to realise that the injunction has to be observed and if it is a matter of meeting with your family, talking to your family, then you need to make arrangements to do that which do not involve you breaking the terms of the injunction.
- So, I would hope it is not going to be a continuing pattern and I would hope that when you are next released you will understand that you cannot continue to break the terms of the injunction.
- You have already been sentenced for a term that amounts to twenty-six weeks for the earlier breaches because the sentences were concurrent. It is my view that it would not be right for me to impose a sentence of less than twenty-six weeks because this is a further breach, these are three further breaches. That term of imprisonment did not work. It has not helped in controlling your behaviour. So my starting point would be to have a longer period of time than the twenty-six weeks as the sentence, but I also need to take into account the fact that you have already spent ten days in custody. If you had not spent any time on remand, then my starting point would have been to have imposed a sentence of thirty-five weeks. Taking into account the time that you have spent on remand, the sentence is going to be thirty-two weeks.
- In the way that I am going to structure it, it is going to be a sentence of thirty-two weeks in respect of each of the three breaches, but to run concurrently, so that the total sentence is thirty-two weeks. It is not thirty-two plus thirty-two plus thirty-two. The total sentence is then thirty-two weeks because those three sentences will run concurrently.
DISTRICT JUDGE DAVIES:
"I wanted to see my mum when I came out of prison. I really miss her and my sister."