Inferior Number Sentencing - grave and criminal assault
Before : |
R. J. MacRae, Esq., Deputy Bailiff, and Jurats Averty and Cornish |
The Attorney General
-v-
Sentencing by the Inferior Number of the Royal Court, following a guilty plea to the following charges:
1 count of: |
Grave and criminal assault (Count 1). |
Breach of community service and probation orders by reoffending and non-compliance
Age: 22.
Plea: Guilty.
Details of Offence:
Grave and criminal assault
On 24 June 2023, the Defendant and the Victim, his ex-girlfriend, met. They had been in a relationship on and off for four years until March 2023 when the Defendant committed a grave and criminal assault on a friend of the Victim.
The Defendant asked to see the Victim's mobile phone, to which she refused. The Victim drove the Defendant to his father's house and he repeatedly asked to see her phone to see who she had been talking to. She continued to refuse. She eventually gave in and let him see her phone.
The Defendant became loud and angry, swinging the passenger door open and kicking it shut. The Victim followed him into the house and they continued to argue about the messages he had seen. The Victim then left the house and the Defendant followed, approached her from behind and grabbed her neck with his hand and pulled backwards, applying pressure to her neck until she could not breathe. He held her by the throat with his right hand with his left hand on her upper back, shaking her from side to side. He then threw her into a bush.
The Victim called 999 and reported the incident. When officers arrived, she was visibly distressed and had visible injuries to her neck. The Defendant was arrested that evening and during interview the Defendant denied the assault and attempted to blame the Victim.
Breach of Community Service Order and Probation Order
The orders were imposed on 9 June 2023 for an offence of grave and criminal assault committed on 12 March 2023. At 2pm in the afternoon, on Gloucester Street, the Defendant approached the Victim in an aggressive manner and punched him to the nose and mouth with his right fist. The Victim fell to the ground and his mouth began to bleed. Whilst on the ground, the Defendant kicked the Victim and was ranting and raving, threatening to kill him. The Victim suffered a laceration to the lip, swelling to the nasal bridge and his right upper incisor was knocked out.
The Magistrate imposed a sentence of 12 months' probation, 130 hours' community service and a compensation order. In April 2024, the Defendant appeared in the Magistrate's Court for failure to comply with his probation order, which he admitted. By virtue of his conviction for the offence of grave and criminal assault, he has also breached both the community service order and probation order by reoffending.
Details of Mitigation:
Crown: Age (21 at the time of the offences). Delay.
Defence: Remorse. Immaturity
Previous Convictions:
Grave and criminal assault (breach offence). Possession of cannabis during the currency of the community service order. Convictions in the Youth Court for motoring offences. The community service order imposed for those offences was repeatedly breached.
Conclusions:
Count 1: |
12 month's imprisonment. |
Breach offences- 4 months' imprisonment
Total: 16 months' imprisonment.
Notification under Domestic Abuse (Jersey) Law 2022 for 5 years.
Domestic Abuse Protection Order ("DAPO") preventing contact with the Victim for 5 years
Sentence and Observations of Court:
Count 1: |
14 month's imprisonment. |
Breach offences- 4 months' imprisonment
Total: 18 months' imprisonment.
Orders under Domestic Abuse (Jersey) Law 2022 made as sought.
Ms L. B. Hallam, Crown Advocate.
Advocate C. R. Baglin for the Defendant.
JUDGMENT
THE DEPUTY BAILIFF:
1. Cameron Smith, you are 22 years old and were 21 when you committed a grave and criminal assault on your former partner, who was a year older than you, in June of last year.
2. You also fall to be sentenced for breaching a community service and probation order imposed by the Magistrate just two weeks before for another offence of grave and criminal assault.
3. Starting with the first assault in time, on 12 March last year in the afternoon in Gloucester Street, you approached another man in an aggressive fashion demanding to know his name. You then punched him to the nose and mouth with your right fist. He fell to the ground. A witness to the assault saw you kicking the man in the shoulder when he was on the ground and threatening to kill him. You were arrested shortly afterwards in Patriotic Street carpark. In your police interview you made no comment and you laughed when told of the injuries to the man you had assaulted. He lost a tooth and suffered lacerations to his lip and swelling to his nose.
4. You appeared in the Magistrate's Court on 20 April 2023 when you pleaded guilty. On 9 June you were sentenced to 12 months' probation and 130 hours' community service, the equivalent to a term of imprisonment of 7 months. You were ordered to pay compensation which you have paid.
5. In April this year, you were summoned to the Magistrate's Court for failing to comply with the probation order. You accepted that you had failed to do so. As to community service, you failed to attend the first appointment and other sessions were characterised by a combination of completed sessions, poor behaviour and lateness resulting in a number of final chances and then dismissal from the scheme. You have been credited with 50 of the 130 hours ordered - 38% of the sentence. We have read the detail of your compliance and it is fair to say the overall picture is of patchy compliance, poor behaviour and poor language. You were described as adopting a "combative attitude" towards the work that you were required to do on your probation order. You said that probation was a "waste of time" and you expressed the wish that the probation office be burnt down. The Probation Service, unsurprisingly for this and other reasons, say that you are no longer suitable for a non-custodial sentence at this time.
6. Bearing in mind that these orders made in June last year, the community service order in particular were direct alternatives to custody, you must anticipate that the Court will impose a custodial sentence today.
7. As to the offence that you committed subsequently - two weeks after you were put on community service - you were in a relationship with your victim for some four years until March of last year. On the evening of 24 June last year you met her and the encounter soon developed into an argument. You repeatedly asked to see her mobile phone to see who she had been messaging and talking to. She refused. When she finally gave in to you, you became angry and were abusive. Your victim drove you to your father's house in St Brelade where you then lived and outside the house you were offensive, you grabbed her by the neck and pulled her backwards applying pressure. You held her by her throat with your right hand and whilst gripping her throat, shook her from side to side. She found that she could not breathe and was very frightened. You then threw her into a bush where she lay on the ground and shouted further abuse at her.
8. The victim called the police and made a complaint about your behaviour. The attending police officers saw that she was distressed and had visible injuries to her neck in the form of an area of reddening. The next day she was seen by Dr Newton, the force forensic medical examiner, and he noted reddening bruising to both sides of her neck which is evidence of the pressure you must have applied to her neck when you assaulted her in the way that you did.
9. You were arrested and you denied the assaults in interview. In a second interview last December you denied the assault. You were not to answer the charge until May of this year owing to delay for which you were not responsible. You entered a not guilty plea and you were tried by the Magistrate's Court in August. Your plea of self-defence was rejected by that Court and you were convicted.
10. In September, the Magistrate's Court declined jurisdiction as she felt that the powers available to her were not sufficient in your case and sent the case to this Court for sentence.
11. We note that you have other convictions recorded against you and it can be fairly said a history of failure to comply with non-custodial orders.
12. Your victim says that for a period of four months following the assault she was anxious and depressed struggling to sleep. She continues to be worried about you and seeing you and she is fearful in her own home as she lives near where you previously worked. She asks the Court to make orders preventing you from contacting her again which the Court will make.
13. We have had regard to the Pre-Sentence Report and note that in that report you denied the offence that you committed against your former partner. You refer to her as a "bitch" and exhibit a number of views which can fairly be described as reprehensible. You think that you are entitled to push women about. You are not. You told the Probation Officer that you "couldn't care less" about the consequences of your behaviour on your victim. You were assessed as being at high risk of re-conviction.
14. We have no doubt that only a custodial sentence is appropriate. This was a nasty case of domestic abuse aggravated by your failure to comply with the community service order which was imposed as a direct alternative to custody in respect of another offence of violence.
15. We have had regard to the delay in this case. We have had regard to your age. We have had regard to the contents of the Pre-Sentence Report and all that your counsel has said. We have had very little regard to your letter of remorse now that we know that it was written by someone else in custody.
16. The Court regards strangulation as a grave matter. As your own counsel said, you do not benefit from a guilty plea in this case which is generally the best credit available to a Defendant. Your victim was not only assaulted by you but had to re-live that assault in a trial a year later and she has not had the comfort of knowing that you have accepted responsibility for what you did let alone expressed any remorse for it. It our view the Crown's conclusions do not sufficiently reflect the seriousness of this offending and the sentence that the Court imposes in relation to the offence of grave and criminal assault is 14 months, not the 12 months called for by the Crown. In addition you will serve 4 months in relation to the first assault in time. We revoke the community service and probation orders. That makes a total of 18 month's imprisonment.
17. We find that the grounds for making a Domestic Abuse Protection Order ("the DAPO") under Article 6 of the Domestic Abuse (Jersey) Law 2022 and the grounds for imposing notification requirements under Article 11 are met and it is accepted that they are met by your counsel on your behalf and we make them both for a period of 5 years from today as sought by the Crown, and as regards the DAPO, in the terms sought by the Crown in their conclusions.
Authorities
Domestic Abuse (Jersey) Law 2022.
Wood v AG [1994] JLR Notes-15a
Criminal Justice (Community Service) (Jersey) Law 2001
Loi (1937) sur l'atténuation des peines et sur la mise en liberté surveillée
Louis v AG [2010] JLR N45
AG v Nafkha [2000] JLR N56c
Domestic Abuse (Jersey) Law 2022