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You are here: BAILII >> Databases >> English and Welsh Courts - Miscellaneous >> Chief Constable of Devon & Cornwall Police v Shorthouse [2025] EWCC 28 (06 May 2025)
URL: http://www.bailii.org/ew/cases/Misc/2025/CC28.html
Cite as: [2025] EWCC 28

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If this Transcript is to be reported or published, there is a requirement to ensure that no reporting restriction will be breached. This is particularly important in relation to any case involving a sexual offence, where the victim is guaranteed lifetime anonymity (Sexual Offences (Amendment) Act 1992), or where an order has been made in relation to a young person.

Neutral citation: [2025] EWCC 28

Case No: L00TQ030

IN THE COUNTY COURT AT PLYMOUTH

The Law Courts

Armada Way

Plymouth

Devon PL1 2ER

Date: 6th May 2025

Before:


DISTRICT JUDGE MASHEMBO

Between:

CHIEF CONSTABLE OF DEVON & CORNWALL POLICE

Applicant

- and -


PATRICIA SHORTHOUSE

Respondent

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Digital Transcription by Marten Walsh Cherer Ltd

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MR KHAN for the Applicant

MR SMETHURST for the Respondent

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JUDGMENT APPROVED


 

 

                  

 

 

 

DISTRICT JUDGE MASHEMBO:

 

  1. I am giving judgment now in L00TQ030.  The prison officers can sit down as well.  Please do not remain standing.
  2. The applicant in this application is the Chief Constable of Devon & Cornwall Police, represented today by Mr Khan.  The respondent is Patricia Shorthouse, represented by Mr Smethurst.
  3. The case before me concerns an injunction order made against Ms Shorthouse on 3 April of last year, but made final on 2 July 2024 under the Anti-Social Behaviour, Crime and Policing Act 2014.  The injunction expires on 2 April 2026.  The relevant terms of that injunction for the purposes of today are these.  Clause 1 prevents Ms Shorthouse from acting in a anti-social manner, that is to say in a manner that causes or is likely to cause harassment, alarm or distress to any person.  The second clause is to prevent her from using offensive, aggressive or obscene words or gestures in a public place such that it causes or is likely to cause harassment, alarm or distress to any person.
  4. The background is that, on 20 November of last year, Ms Shorthouse appeared in court and admitted breaching the injunction.  She was sentenced to a total period of four days in prison, with two days on remand, so effectively a sentence of two days.  I suspended that sentence until 20 May 2025, that not being put into force if, during that time, she complied with the terms of the injunction.
  5. Sadly, Ms Shorthouse did not comply with the injunction.  On 7 March 2025, I sentenced her to thirty days' imprisonment for breaching the injunction on two separate occasions, one breach having occurred while she was on bail to return to court for a sentencing hearing in respect of the first breach.  I also needed to activate the suspended sentence that I gave her in November.  She had, by then, served the equivalent of ten days on remand, and so the sentence was one of twenty days.
  6. The situation today, some five weeks after that hearing, is that on 11 April of this year Ms Shorthouse was arrested again for breaches of paragraphs 1 and 2 of the injunction by, it is said, acting in an anti-social manner and using offensive, aggressive and obscene words to an emergency worker at the Sefton Hotel, causing harassment, alarm and distress the previous day, on 10 April 2025.  Ms Shorthouse was taken to Exeter County Court.  The court adjourned her case for seven days so that she could obtain legal representation. 
  7. The case came before me on 23 April and I declined to order a bench warrant (Ms Shorthouse did not attend that hearing) because I was not satisfied that she had been served notice of the hearing on 23 April.  The case was then listed on 30 April and I was satisfied that Ms Shorthouse had been served with the relevant documents on 23 April.  Ms Shorthouse, again, did not attend.  The police asked for a bench warrant and I granted that application.  I am told that Ms Shorthouse was arrested on 4 May, which was Sunday of the previous weekend, and today I am proceeding to deal with all matters in the round.
  8. The evidence in support of this case is found in the police statements of PC Hopkins, dated 11 April, PC Thomas, dated 11 April, and Mr Michael Frost, who was the paramedic, dated 10 April 2025.  The circumstances of the breach are set out in Mr Frost's statement.  He describes how, when he attended the hotel, Ms Shorthouse started to get agitated, using lots of explicit language, shouting and swearing at him and his colleague.  She began to get more and more agitated and verbally aggressive and more erratic in her behaviour.  She was standing up, twitching and walking towards them, he describes, and so they decided to remove themselves from the situation.  Ms Shorthouse then came into the reception where Mr Frost was and was shouting and swearing again and is described as "squaring up" to them and she was shouting, "Don't hit me".  Thereafter, Ms Shorthouse began to hit Mr Frost's arms and also pushed him.  So those are the circumstances behind the breach.
  9. Ms Shorthouse, before me today, admits breaching the injunction order and so dealing with that first, I do find to the criminal standard of proof that Ms Shorthouse has breached paragraphs 1 and 2 of the injunction.  She is in contempt of court.
  10. I then turn to sentencing. I have heard both from Mr Khan and Mr Smethurst.  My previous judgments set out the objective of sentencing but as Mr Khan has again reminded me, they are to ensure future compliance with the order, punishment and rehabilitation, those objectives having been set out in the case of Wigan Borough Council v Lovett [2023] 1 WLR 1443. 
  11. As Mr Smethurst has said, there are a number of options available to the court.  Mr Khan has also set out the options available to me.  They are committal to prison, immediate or suspended, to adjourn the penalty or a fine.  I remind myself that the general principle is that custody is reserved for the most serious of breaches and for less serious cases where other methods of securing compliance with the order have failed.  In the most minor cases, the court may decide that the impact of the proceedings is likely to achieve the purposes of the contempt jurisdiction and it may be appropriate to make no order save for the finding of breach.  I need to consider a penalty for each breach found proved.  Any term of imprisonment may be concurrent or consecutive to each other.  Consideration needs to be given to the totality of the penalties imposed.  A custodial sentence should not be imposed if an alternative course is sufficient and appropriate. 
  12. If I do decide to impose a term of imprisonment, that term should always be the shortest term which will achieve the purpose for which it is being imposed.  If custody is appropriate, the length of the sentence should be decided without reference to whether or not it is to be suspended. 
  13. In my judgment, an adjournment of the sentence as a deterrent and to secure a means of compliance would serve no purpose.  Similarly, a fine does not appear appropriate on the facts of this case.
  14. On thinking about custody, the first question to ask myself is whether the custody threshold has been passed.  In my view it clearly has, given the history and given the respondent's behaviour this time and the impact of that behaviour on Mr Frost.  I give consideration to the degree of harm and the degree of culpability, bearing in mind the civil context, and I consider the well-known scheme based on the three levels of culpability and harm.
  15. Dealing with culpability first, in my judgment the breaches of the order by Ms Shorthouse were deliberate breaches.  She was fully aware of the injunction order and what she could or could not do. 
  16. With regard to the level of harm, there is in this case evidence of actual physically violent behaviour.  Mr Frost was assaulted repeatedly and in circumstances where he was just there to care for Ms Shorthouse.  What was said and what was done was abusive. The behaviour has caused anxiety to Mr Frost and added to his anxiety when it comes to dealing with future incidents of this nature.  He sets that out in his statement.  He says he has also been left apprehensive about dealing with future patients.  I do not, however, categorise the behaviour as causing very serious harm or distress.
  17. So, having regard to the table in Lovett, I respectfully disagree with Mr Smethurst, well, both counsel in fact, and I categorise the breach as falling within Category 2, Culpability Level B.  The appropriate starting point for any sentence is one month.  The category range within which the sentence can be adjusted is adjourned consideration up to three months' imprisonment. 
  18. There are some elements for the court to take into consideration when looking at the seriousness of the breaches.  There are two breaches in this case.  This is now the fourth time that the respondent has breached the injunction.  It is relatively serious and I note as I have done on previous occasions that Ms Shorthouse sadly has a long history of offending behaviour.  She now has fifty-five convictions for ninety-one offences, starting in 2008 up until 27 March 2025.  I note that she has eight convictions for assault of an emergency worker.  She clearly has a poor compliance history with court orders.
  19. Are there any mitigating factors?  Mr Smethurst impresses upon the court that Ms Shorthouse is a victim of domestic abuse and that is the reason behind her heightened state and her distressed demeanour on this occasion having been, he says, subject to a physical assault that very same day, and is the reason why she is said to have said, as reported by Mr Frost, "Don't hit me".   She clearly has some vulnerability characterised by domestic abuse and alcohol abuse.  I am told today that Ms Shorthouse is in touch with the drug and alcohol service in her locality.  She has not, I am told, acknowledged her problem before and this may very well be the first step, Mr Smethurst says, and I very much hope it is.  But, in my judgment, the contempt is so serious that only a custodial penalty is appropriate.
  20. In this case, I am giving Ms Shorthouse sixty days for each breach, those to run concurrently.  I acknowledge that Ms Shorthouse has served the equivalent of ten days in custody already by virtue of her remand this weekend and just before she came to court in April.
  21. So the sentence that I pass upon Ms Shorthouse is sixty days' imprisonment less ten days for time spent in custody on remand, and so that is a total sentence of fifty days.  That seems to me to be just and proportionate.  I am not going to suspend the sentence of imprisonment.  This is not the first breach.  The suspended sentence that I passed in November did not bring about compliance with the injunction order.  And so that is my decision.
  22. Finally, I should say, for the purpose of my judgment, which will be transcribed, that I raised with Devon & Cornwall Police on 30 April whether they might wish to consider seeking any amendment to the injunction which might include some form of alcohol awareness course.  It strikes me that further thought needs to be given to how Ms Shorthouse can be supported.  The recurrent features of her behaviour are drink-related and also her relationship.  She clearly needs help.  I have raised that again with counsel for Devon & Cornwall Police and I know that will be passed back.
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