Brief but Extreme Harassment May Warrant Category A Culpability

1. Introduction

This decision addresses how the sentencing guidelines apply to a short but exceptionally threatening episode of domestic harassment. The Court of Appeal confirmed that offending lasting approximately 25 minutes could properly attract category A, the highest culpability classification, where the threats were extreme and acquired particular credibility from the offender’s history of serious violence against the intended victim.

The applicant sought permission to appeal an extended sentence imposed following his guilty plea to putting a person in fear of violence by harassment, contrary to section 4(1) of the Protection from Harassment Act 1997. He challenged both the culpability assessment and the sentencing judge’s reliance on an apparently existing non-molestation order.

The judgment is principally a fact-sensitive application of the sentencing guidelines, rather than the creation of a new statutory rule. Its significance lies in explaining why the intensity, context and credibility of threats may outweigh their short duration when assessing culpability.

2. Background and Procedural History

The relationship and previous violence

The applicant and the complainant had a longstanding relationship and seven children together. Their relationship ended in late 2024. It had involved repeated domestic abuse, including a particularly serious assault in 2006 for which the applicant was convicted under section 18 of the Offences against the Person Act 1861. During that assault, he inflicted severe facial injuries on the complainant while she was holding one of their recently born children.

Violence continued after his release from custody. The judgment records a later assault involving strangulation and another assault shortly after release from a subsequent sentence. At the time of sentencing for the present offence, he had 26 convictions for 51 offences.

The harassment

On 28 April 2025, the applicant made repeated telephone and video calls to an adult daughter, threatening to kill her mother. He displayed a knife and demonstrated how he would use it. When the daughter attempted to divert him away from the family home by suggesting that her mother was elsewhere, he went to that location and subsequently made further threats.

The threats also invoked the grave of the applicant’s and complainant’s deceased infant son. They were made on the eve of the anniversary of the child’s funeral, giving them an especially distressing personal significance. Other family members heard some of the calls, and police body-worn cameras recorded part of the threatening conduct.

The complainant became terrified and hid in a friend’s car. The use of the adult daughter as the immediate recipient of the threats was important: the applicant involved his children in conduct intended to frighten their mother, causing distress beyond the principal intended victim.

Plea and sentence

The applicant was initially charged with threats to kill. On the day fixed for trial, the prosecution accepted a guilty plea to the lesser harassment offence. He was therefore sentenced for harassment, not convicted of the original charge.

On 26 November 2025, His Honour Judge Neil Usher imposed an extended sentence comprising a custodial term of five years and two months and an additional three-year licence period. A restraining order, continuing until further order, prohibited contact with the adult daughter and approaching any residence the applicant knew or believed was occupied by either her or the complainant.

A single judge refused permission to appeal. The applicant then renewed his application before the full court and sought an extension of time.

3. Issues and Outcome

The renewed application raised three principal questions:

1. Could this relatively brief episode properly be classified as category A culpability?
2. Did uncertainty about whether a non-molestation order was in force undermine the sentence?
3. Was the resulting sentence manifestly excessive?

The Court of Appeal granted the extension of time but refused permission to appeal against sentence.

The extension was justified because prison transfers had delayed the applicant’s receipt of the single judge’s refusal. The delay was not his fault, and he acted promptly once notified. That procedural accommodation did not imply that his substantive sentencing arguments were arguable.

On the merits, the court upheld the category A assessment. Although it accepted that the prosecution had not proved that a non-molestation order was operative, that uncertainty did not justify reducing culpability or granting permission to challenge the sentence. The original sentence therefore remained undisturbed.

4. The Sentencing Framework

The sentencing judge assessed the offence as category 1 for harm and category A for culpability. The renewed application focused on culpability rather than advancing a separate challenge to the harm assessment.

The aggravating matters identified by the sentencing judge included previous offences against the same victim, the impact on children whom the applicant used to convey the threats, and the supposed existence of a non-molestation order. The last of those matters became contentious on appeal.

The 20 per cent plea reduction reflected an earlier, although equivocal, indication at the plea and trial preparation hearing that the applicant would plead guilty to the lesser offence. The Court of Appeal did not separately analyse the appropriate level of that reduction.

5. Legal Reasoning

Extreme manifestations of a culpability factor

The central reasoning appears in paragraphs 17–18. The court accepted that conduct intended to maximise fear or distress—a factor associated with culpability category B—could, through its extreme nature, justify category A.

This was not a mechanical exercise in identifying the label attached to an individual factor. The court examined the degree to which that factor was present. Repeated, graphic threats involving a displayed weapon, the targeting of a bereaved parent’s grief and the applicant’s established history of serious violence supported the highest culpability assessment.

The reasoning therefore illustrates a qualitative approach to guideline categorisation: the exceptional intensity of a relevant feature can matter as much as its formal description.

Why previous violence mattered

The history of abuse was not simply evidence that the applicant had a poor criminal record. It explained why these particular threats were especially credible and frightening. A threat from someone who has previously inflicted serious violence upon the same person has a different practical significance from an otherwise similar statement made without that history.

Adopting the single judge’s reasoning, the court held that the sentencing judge was bound to consider this background. It helped establish the threatening quality of the conduct and the fear the applicant intended to create.

The decision should not, however, be read as establishing a general entitlement to count the same feature repeatedly. It did not separately examine any double-counting argument concerning the use of previous offending at different sentencing stages.

Short duration did not require a lower category

The applicant emphasised that the calls lasted only about 25 minutes. The court did not reject duration as irrelevant; it held that the short period was insufficient to move this offending out of category A.

Within that period, the applicant made repeated and highly specific threats, displayed and demonstrated a weapon, sought the complainant at another location, and exploited deeply personal bereavement. The concentrated nature of the intimidation did not make it less extreme.

The resulting principle is limited but important: brevity does not impose a ceiling on culpability. The court did not hold that all short episodes involving serious threats must receive category A treatment.

The unproved non-molestation order

The Court of Appeal accepted that the non-molestation order might not have been in force when the offence occurred. Its existence had therefore not been established by the prosecution to the criminal standard (paragraph 19).

That concession matters. A disputed aggravating allegation cannot properly be treated as established merely because it is plausible. Nevertheless, the court considered that the uncertainty did not undermine category A culpability. The extreme conduct remained sufficient, and the applicant was subject to post-sentence supervision and licence following a recent conviction that included battery.

The judgment does not authorise reliance on an unproved protective order. Rather, it treats that uncertainty as insufficient to disturb the assessment in the circumstances of this case. Its reasoning concentrates on culpability and does not provide a separate numerical recalculation of the sentence after removing the disputed aggravating feature.

The extended sentence and risk assessment

The pre-sentence report assessed the applicant as presenting a very high risk of serious physical harm to the complainant. It recorded that he minimised his behaviour, blamed victims and had continued offending despite completing the Integrated Domestic Abuse Programme.

The sentencing judge found a serious risk of significant harm through further specified offending and imposed the extended licence period. This was a forward-looking assessment, distinct from the evaluation of the seriousness of the completed offence.

The Court of Appeal left that sentence intact. However, its judgment did not undertake a separate, detailed examination of the statutory requirements for an extended sentence. Its clearest guidance concerns culpability and the significance of short duration.

6. Precedents and Authorities

No external judicial decisions are cited in the judgment. It would therefore be inaccurate to present the outcome as an application of a named line of appellate authorities.

The court’s reasoning instead rests on:

• the applicable Sentencing Council guideline;
• the statutory harassment offence under section 4(1) of the Protection from Harassment Act 1997;
• the sentencing findings and pre-sentence report; and
• the single judge’s reasons for refusing permission in these same proceedings.

The quoted single judge’s observations were not a separate precedent. They were an earlier procedural assessment which the full court endorsed, particularly concerning the relevance of previous violence and the exceptional cruelty of the threats.

7. Potential Impact and Limits

The judgment offers practical guidance for sentencing in domestic harassment cases.

• Context can transform the seriousness of threats. Previous violence against the same victim may explain their credibility and intended effect.
• Intensity may outweigh brevity. A short episode can warrant the highest culpability category where its features are sufficiently extreme.
• Indirect threats remain highly significant. Using children or other relatives to transmit intimidation can deepen its impact and aggravate the offending.
• Disputed aggravation requires proof. The decision expressly recognises the prosecution’s criminal-standard burden concerning the alleged protective order.
• An identified uncertainty need not determine the application. Here, the remaining circumstances supported the court’s refusal of permission.

The decision should not be treated as establishing a minimum sentence for domestic harassment, an automatic category A classification for threats involving weapons, or a rule that licence conditions are equivalent to a non-molestation order.

Nor did the court decide whether a particular number of calls within 25 minutes will always satisfy the legal requirements of harassment. The applicant had pleaded guilty; the contested issue was sentence, not the constituent elements of the offence.

8. Complex Concepts Simplified

Culpability and harm

Culpability concerns the offender’s blameworthiness. Harm concerns the consequences and seriousness of the offending for those affected. They are related but separate sentencing assessments.

Manifestly excessive sentence

A sentence must be shown to be excessively severe in an appellate sense; disagreement with the sentencing judge’s assessment is not enough.

Renewed application for leave

After a single judge refuses permission to appeal, an applicant may ask the full court to reconsider permission. This judgment refused that renewed application rather than deciding an appeal for which permission had already been granted.

Criminal standard of proof

The prosecution must establish a disputed aggravating fact so that the court is sure of it. Uncertainty about whether the protective order had taken effect meant it was not proved.

Extended sentence

A sentence combining a custodial term with an additional licence period designed to manage the risk of future serious offending. The additional licence period is not itself an additional custodial term.

Non-molestation order and restraining order

These are distinct protective measures. The disputed non-molestation order concerned the position when the offence occurred; the restraining order was imposed when the applicant was sentenced.

9. Conclusion

The Court of Appeal confirmed that exceptionally intense harassment can justify category A culpability even when concentrated into approximately 25 minutes. The decisive features were the graphic and credible threats, the history of serious domestic violence, the involvement of family members and the deliberate exploitation of bereavement.

The court also acknowledged that the alleged non-molestation order had not been proved, but concluded that this did not warrant permission to challenge the sentence. The decision’s broader significance is its insistence on assessing threatening conduct in its full relational context, rather than treating duration as a reliable measure of seriousness.