Basri, R. v

Factual and Procedural Background

The Defendant pleaded guilty to offences of stalking causing serious alarm or distress under section 4A of the Protection from Harassment Act 1997 (count 2) and to an offence of doing an act tending and intended to pervert the course of public justice (count 3). The offences related to the victim, referred to as "A," against whom the Defendant had committed sexual offences a decade earlier when she was aged 14. The Defendant, now aged 47, had a longstanding connection to A and her family, including assisting her due to shared deafness and her skill in sign language. Despite a history of prior convictions, including sexual offences against A and breaches of notification requirements, the Defendant engaged in persistent stalking behaviour from 2019 into early 2020. This included sending numerous messages, creating dating profiles in A's name, and attempting to bribe A to drop an original stalking charge.

Following these events, the Defendant was charged and sentenced on 9 July 2020 at the Crown Court at Wood Green to a total of 10 months' imprisonment. The Solicitor General considered this sentence unduly lenient and applied for leave to refer the sentence for review under section 36 of the Criminal Justice Act 1988.

Legal Issues Presented

1. Whether the total sentence of 10 months' imprisonment imposed on the Defendant for stalking causing serious alarm or distress and perverting the course of public justice was unduly lenient.
2. The appropriate categorisation of the stalking offence under the Sentencing Council's definitive guideline and the proper starting point and range for sentencing.
3. The appropriate sentence for the offence of perverting the course of public justice, including whether it should be consecutive or concurrent to the stalking sentence.
4. The extent to which the Defendant's difficulties in custody and the timing and nature of his guilty pleas should mitigate the sentence.

Arguments of the Parties

Solicitor General's Arguments

• The harm to the victim was more serious than the prosecution below acknowledged, warranting categorisation as harm category 1B rather than 2.
• The starting point for the stalking offence should have been 2 years 6 months’ custody, with a range of 1 to 4 years, reflecting aggravating features including the Defendant’s previous convictions and offending while on bail.
• The offence of perverting the course of public justice was serious and merited a significant consecutive custodial sentence or, if concurrent, a substantial increase in the stalking sentence.
• The mitigation for the Defendant, including his difficulties in custody, was acknowledged but did not justify the lenient sentence imposed.

Defendant's Counsel's Arguments

• The ongoing contact between the Defendant and the victim over the years was friendly from the Defendant’s perspective, influenced by sympathy.
• The period covered by the stalking offence was relatively short, just over one month.
• The perverting the course of justice offence was an unsophisticated and unsuccessful attempt, immediately recognised by the victim.
• The Defendant’s difficulties in custody, particularly due to his deafness and the Covid-19 pandemic, justified a more lenient sentence.
• Any leniency in sentencing was not unduly so.

Table of Precedents Cited

No precedents were cited in the provided opinion.

Court's Reasoning and Analysis

The court acknowledged the difficulty faced by the sentencing judge, who had limited preparation and incomplete information, including an unawareness of a prior sentence imposed in January 2020. The court found that the prosecution’s summary of facts was unclear and that undue emphasis had been placed on the friendship between the Defendant and the victim, overlooking the victim’s young age at the time of earlier offences and her obligation to assist the Defendant due to their mutual deafness.

The court emphasized that the sentencing judge was required to sentence only for the admitted offences, but the Defendant’s past conduct was relevant to assessing the harm caused by the stalking offence, which compounded previous distress. The court agreed that the Defendant’s difficulties in custody during the pandemic warranted significant weight.

However, the court concluded that the total sentence of 10 months failed to reflect the seriousness of the offending. The stalking offence was properly categorised as at least category 2B, with a significant upward adjustment necessary due to the harm caused and aggravating factors such as previous convictions and offending on bail. The offence of perverting the course of public justice was serious, involving an attempt to bribe the victim to drop a serious charge, and merited a substantial consecutive sentence or, if concurrent, a substantial increase in the stalking sentence.

The court acknowledged the Defendant’s plea credit for the perverting offence but noted the late plea to the stalking offence limited credit. Even allowing for mitigation, the court found a total sentence of less than two years inappropriate.

Holding and Implications

The court GRANTED LEAVE to the Solicitor General to refer the sentence for review and QUASHED the original sentence of 10 months' imprisonment as unduly lenient.

The court substituted the sentence with 16 months' imprisonment on the stalking offence (count 2) and 8 months' imprisonment on the perverting the course of public justice offence (count 3), to run consecutively, resulting in a total sentence of two years' imprisonment.

The direct effect is a significant increase in the Defendant’s custodial sentence reflecting the gravity of the offences and the Defendant’s history. No new legal precedent was established by this decision.