Suspended Sentence - Serious Category 1A ABH - Southwark Crown Court 2024

Our client appeared before Southwark Crown Court after pleading guilty in the Magistrates’ Court to one count of Assault Occasioning Actual Bodily Harm. The allegation concerned an incident in which our client drunkenly assaulted his estranged mother at her home address. He was subsequently remanded into custody awaiting sentence, which was the first time he had ever been in prison.

When our client originally appeared before the Court to be sentenced, we noted that no Pre-Sentence Report had been prepared, which we believed would be crucial to securing the lowest sentence possible. Thus, paralegal Maeve Carroll instructed counsel to apply for an adjournment and request that the Court order a Pre-Sentence Report and an Alcohol Treatment Requirement Assessment. The Court granted these requests, which were ultimately instrumental in our client’s release from prison upon sentence.

We prepared the case pending the new sentence date, including obtaining a psychiatric report and gathering character statements and instructed counsel to represent our client. At the hearing, the Prosecution sought to rely on a victim impact statement, but after hearing submissions from the Defence, the Court found this to be inadmissible as our client was not given advance notice of this evidence.

Despite the sentencing Judge finding that our client’s case fell into category 1A on the Sentencing Guidelines for ABH (the most serious category of case), which carries a starting point of 2.5 years’ immediate imprisonment, the Judge took into account the mitigation put forward by the Defence and accepted that there was a realistic prospect of rehabilitation. Consequently, our client was handed a sentence of 1 year 4 months’ custody suspended for 2 years, and was released from prison after the hearing, allowing him to start rebuilding his life.