Factual and Procedural Background
On 31 July 2025 the Appellant, then aged 20, was sentenced in the Crown Court to 30 months' custody for controlling or coercive behaviour in an intimate or family relationship (contrary to section 76 of the Serious Crime Act 2015) (count 1), and concurrently to six weeks' custody for assault by beating (count 2), to which he had pleaded guilty. The complainant was his female partner. These offences were committed during the operative period of a suspended sentence order of 16 months' custody imposed on 14 June 2024 for robbery and assault occasioning actual bodily harm. The sentencing Judge activated the suspended sentence in full and ordered the 30‑month sentence on count 1 to run consecutively, producing a total custodial term of 46 months. The Appellant obtained permission to appeal on grounds that the sentences and the activation were manifestly excessive.
The indictment alleged that between 13 April 2024 and 13 February 2025 the Appellant engaged in controlling or coercive behaviour causing the complainant on two or more occasions to fear violence, and included allegations of verbal and physical abuse, spitting in her face, damaging property, controlling her clothing, taking her phone, biting her face, smashing property, dragging her by the hair, kicking her, punching her and calling her a derogatory name. Count 2 arose from a separate incident in which the Appellant pulled the complainant by the hair, hit her head and pinned her against a wall.
The suspended sentence order had included an unpaid work requirement of 100 hours of which 42.15 hours had been completed; the Probation Service described the Appellant as in "medium compliance" with the order but concluded the new offences represented an escalation in seriousness and harm.
Legal Issues Presented
- Whether the sentencing Judge was entitled to activate the suspended sentence in full given the degree of compliance with the suspended sentence order and the nature of the new offences.
- Whether the Judge correctly placed the count 1 offending in the applicable sentencing guideline category (higher culpability category A / category A1) and whether he wrongly identified or weighed aggravating and mitigating factors (including alleged double-counting of the breach and the weight to be given to youth‑related mitigation).
- Whether the Judge gave sufficient consideration to the Sentencing Children and Young People guideline and to the principle of totality in reaching the overall sentence.
Arguments of the Parties
Appellant's Arguments
- Attorney Powell submitted that, given "medium compliance" with the suspended sentence order (including partial completion of unpaid work) and the Appellant's youth at the time of the original offences, the Judge should not have activated the suspended sentence in full but should have reduced the extent of activation in line with the guidelines.
- It was contended that the count 1 offending should have been placed at most in category A2 (not A1), especially in the absence of a victim impact statement and in light of cross‑examination evidence; and that the Judge erred in identifying and weighing aggravating factors, wrongly treating the breach as an aggravating factor (double‑counting) and giving insufficient weight to mitigating factors relating to the Appellant's upbringing, loss of his mother, health, youth and immaturity.
- The Appellant argued insufficient weight was given to the Sentencing Children and Young People guideline and to the totality principle, rendering the overall sentence manifestly excessive.
Respondent's Arguments
- The Respondent's Notice submitted that the Judge correctly placed the new offences in the first category of the suspended sentence‑breach guideline, so the level of compliance with unpaid work was inapposite; the Judge's categorisation of count 1 as A1 was justified by the evidence; and treating the breach as an aggravating factor was proper and did not amount to impermissible double‑counting.
Table of Precedents Cited
No precedents were cited in the provided opinion.
Court's Reasoning and Analysis
The Court (Judge Soole delivering the judgment) accepted the Crown Court Judge's factual and evaluative assessments in large measure. The Court concluded that the new offences represented an escalation in seriousness and harm compared with the offences underpinning the suspended sentence, and that the sentencing Judge was best placed to make that assessment. The Court upheld the Judge's placement of the count 1 offending in higher culpability category A (A1) and his assessment of harm in category 1, noting the jury had rejected the complainant's recantation and that the evidence justified the starting point of 30 months' custody.
The Court rejected the submission that treating the commission of the new offences during the operative period of the suspended sentence as an aggravating factor amounted to impermissible double‑counting with the separate question of activation, and it saw no basis to interfere with the Judge's conclusion that aggravating and mitigating factors cancelled each other out so as to leave the starting point unchanged.
However, the Court identified error at the final stage of sentencing: the Recorder had not expressly stood back and considered the principle of totality. The Court therefore undertook that exercise itself and concluded that, with proper account of totality, the activated element of the suspended sentence should be reduced. The Court reduced the period of activation from 16 months to 8 months and ordered that the 30‑month sentence on count 1 run consecutively to that reduced activated sentence, producing a total custodial term of 38 months. The Court also corrected the sentencing documentation to substitute detention in a young offender institution (appropriate because the Appellant was under 21 at conviction) for any reference to imprisonment, and set aside and substituted the Crown Court sentences accordingly.
Holding and Implications
The appeal was allowed in part: the activated sentence was reduced from 16 months to 8 months, the 30‑month sentence on count 1 was ordered to run consecutively, and the total sentence was reduced to 38 months' detention in a young offender institution.
Direct consequences: the Appellant's overall custodial term was reduced from 46 months to 38 months and all custodial sentences are to be served as detention in a young offender institution. The opinion does not purport to establish any new legal precedent beyond its application of existing guidelines to the facts of this case.