Inferior Number Sentencing – indecent assault – having in a public place an offensive weapon.

[2013]JRC007

Royal Court

(Samedi)

11 January 2013

The Attorney General

-v-

Nelson Abreu Gomes

Sentencing by the Inferior Number of the Royal Court, following guilty pleas to the following charges:

Age:  50.

Plea: Guilty.

Details of Offence:

The defendant, who knew the victim in passing and was aware that she had recently separated from her boyfriend, called at her address and forced his way past her into her room.  He tried to kiss her on the lips but she resisted, the kisses falling on her face.  He restrained her by the arm, causing bruising, and then groped her breasts.  He told her that he wanted to go to bed with her.  The victim escaped from the room and the defendant left.  The defendant returned two days later to find the victim’s former partner at her address.  The defendant gestured towards a knife he was carrying in his waistband and the victim’s former partner, fearing he was going to use it, brought him to the ground.  A neighbour then called the police. 

The defendant was evasive during interview, frequently changing his version of events before finally accepting the versions advanced by the victim and her former partner. 

Details of Mitigation:

The defendant entered an early guilty plea.

Previous Convictions:

The defendant had a single conviction for grave and criminal assault in 2004, for which he was ordered to complete a 12 month probation order.

Conclusions:

Total: 21 months’ imprisonment. 

Order under Article 5(1) of the Sex Offenders (Jersey) Law 2010 that a period of 5 years elapse before the accused is permitted to apply to no longer be subject to the notification requirements. 

Forfeiture and destruction of the knife sought.

Sentence and Observations of Court:

The Court increased the Crown’s conclusions in respect of Count 2, noting that had that offence stood alone, it might have increased the Crown’s conclusions more significantly.  On totality grounds, it considered that 24 months was sufficient.

Total: 24 months’ imprisonment. 

Court satisfied under Article 5(1) of the Sex Offenders (Jersey) Law 2010 that a period of 5 years elapse before the accused is permitted to be no longer subject to the notification requirements of the Law.

Forfeiture and destruction of the knife ordered. 

C. M. M. Yates, Esq., Crown Advocate.

Advocate D. S. Steenson for the Defendant.

JUDGMENT

THE DEPUTY BAILIFF:

1.        Mr Gomes, I deal first with the question of the Sex Offenders legislation.  As a result of your plea to Count 1, you become subject to the notification requirements under the Sex Offenders Law.  The Court orders that you should not be permitted to make any application for the notification requirements to be disapplied to you during the next 5 years.  So the position is that the notification requirements apply indefinitely and you cannot come to Court and ask them to be removed for at least 5 years.  We are not going to make any order for your deportation but you should be aware that these were serious offences and if you come back before this Court again, the Court is likely to look much more carefully at the possibility of making a recommendation for deportation. 

2.        You are here to be sentenced on an Indictment which contains two charges.  The first is an indecent assault and the second having a knife in a public place with you which was an offensive weapon which you carried without lawful authority or reasonable excuse. 

3.        On the first count of the Indictment the Court sentences you to 12 months’ imprisonment.  We are completely satisfied that this must have been a very frightening occasion for the victim of this offence even if the actual assault might have been, as is conceded by the Crown, at the lower end of the scale.  We have considered what your counsel has had to say and all that is in the background reports and we, nonetheless, consider the sentence of 12 months to be correct.  On the second count on the Indictment we sentence you to 12 months’ imprisonment, which is to run consecutively to the sentence on Count 1, making a total of 2 years’ imprisonment.  The full reasons for this sentence, on both Counts 1 and 2, are going to be delivered later and to the extent you will wish to consider any question of appeal with your counsel, time will run from the date of delivery of the reasoned decision. 

4.        We order the forfeiture and destruction of the knife as the Crown has requested. 

Authorities

Sex Offenders (Jersey) Law 2010.

AG-v-Mendes [2010] JRC 237.

AG-v-Sousa 2001/219.

AG-v-Heard [2012] JRC 132.