ROYAL COURT
(Samedi Division)
26 November 1999
Before: Sir Philip Bailhache, Bailiff, and
Jurats Quérée and Tibbo
AG
V
David Hugh Gale
Sentencing by the Inferior Number of the Royal Court following conviction at a criminal assize on 7 July 1999 on a not guilty plea entered before the Inferior Number on 26 February 1999 to count 1, set out below; and following a guilty plea entered before the Inferior Number on 26 February 1999 to count 2, below:
Count 1:grave and criminal assault.
Count 2:common assault.
On 1 November 1999 the accused was acquitted at a criminal assize on 1 count of causing a public nuisance, to which he had pleaded not guilty before the Inferior Number on 26 February 1999.
Age: 36.
Details of Offence:
Sustained attack, victim on ground defenceless but no kicks or weapons. Both men drunk.
Details of Mitigation:
Helped to take victim to hospital, gave himself up to police, part remorse.
Previous Convictions:
Several but none for violence - no prison before.
Conclusions:
Count 1:2½ years imprisonment.
Count 2:3 months imprisonment, concurrent.
TOTAL:2½ years imprisonment.
Sentence & Observations of the Court:
Count 1:2 years imprisonment.
Count 2:1 month imprisonment, concurrent.
TOTAL:2 years imprisonment.
Injuries not as severe as might have been. Not quite a Norris situation.
N M Santos Costa, Crown Advocate
Advocate J C Gollop for the accused
JUDGMENT
THE BAILIFF: This was a serious assault committed by the accused in circumstances in which both he and the victim were very drunk. They were known to each other and indeed were friends.
The gravamen of the assault is that when the victim was lying defenceless on the ground, the accused was punching him around the head for a period of approximately one minute.
Defence counsel has put to us that the accused was provoked by blows struck by the victim who is said to have been the original aggressor. As the victim can remember nothing of the events, there is no evidence to support or to counter this assertion. However, the victim suffered severe bruising and abrasions to the head and body and shortly after arrival at the Hospital, slipped into deep unconsciousness. He was, however, discharged the following day.
To the credit of the accused, he did not run away from the scene; indeed he took the victim to the Hospital. Eventually he gave himself up to the police and expressed remorse for what he had done. He has a bad record but there are no convictions for violence and he has never been sentenced to prison before. In the judgment of the Court this is not in truth a Norris type of case and although there is no doubt that a custodial sentence must be imposed, in our judgment the appropriate starting point is one of between twenty-seven and thirty months imprisonment. There seems, however, little mitigation, but giving such credit as we can to the accused we think that the appropriate sentence in relation to count 1 is one of two years imprisonment. So far as count 2 is concerned, we accept that this was a minor assault and we impose a sentence of 1 month imprisonment which, having regard to the totality principle, will be concurrent. The sentence of the Court, therefore, is that the accused will go to prison for a total of 2 years.
Authorities
AG v Norris (3 June 1992) Jersey Unreported
Whelan: "Aspects of Sentencing in the Superior Courts of Jersey": pp.84-6; 91-4
AG v Mulligan (9 October 1998) Jersey Unreported
AG v Dowden (10 February 1995) Jersey Unreported
AG v Smitton (29 July 1993) Jersey Unreported