Inferior Number Sentence - common assault.
[2019]JRC121
Royal Court
(Samedi)
28 June 2019
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Before :
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T. J. Le Cocq, Esq., Deputy Bailiff, and
Jurats Crill and Austin-Vautier.
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The Attorney General
-v-
Andrew Leslie Rawlinson
Sentencing by the Inferior
Number of the Royal Court, following a guilty plea to the following charge:
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1 count of:
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Common assault (Count 1).
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Age: 50.
Plea: Guilty.
Details of Offence:
At around 12:15 pm on 2nd
February, 2019, the Victim attended an Alcoholics Anonymous meeting with her
sponsor. The meeting took longer
than expected, and she called the Defendant to let him know this. She was worried that the Defendant was
annoyed and therefore delayed returning to their shared flat.
At approximately 3:30 pm the Victim
returned to the flat. A
disagreement broke out and the Defendant questioned the Victim over whether she
had been drinking. She became
agitated and the Defendant placed his hands on her shoulders, and when this did
not calm her he slapped her twice, once to either side of her face.
The Defendant requested that the
Victim remove the engagement ring he had given her. She refused and he attempted to remove
it himself, by taking hold of her hand and trying to pull the ring free. This was unsuccessful.
The Defendant then tried to stop the
Victim from leaving the address by holding her shoulders and he told her that
they needed to “discuss matters
further”.
He then took the Victim to the floor,
where she continued to struggle once on the ground and he “placed his hands on either side of her face
to hold her head still” and tried to make eye contact.
The Defendant then moved away from
the Victim, picked up a wooden stick which was next a radiator, and threw it
against a wall but not towards the Complainant.
The Victim was then able to leave
and ran from the address and she kept running until she felt safe. She went to the Old Court House in St
Aubin’s and consumed two to three pints of lager.
At approximately 9:55 pm the Police
attended the Old Court House as she had been asked to leave by staff at the
bar, but had not done so. The
Victim told the Police that she had been assaulted by the Defendant after he
had become angry that she was late back from her meeting. A police officer noted reddening,
bruising and grazing to the Victim’s face. The Defendant was arrested later in the
evening at the flat.
The Victim was later found to have
suffered multiple minor injuries to her face, head, right elbow and left hand.
Details of Mitigation:
Guilty plea.
Previous Convictions:
18 months’ imprisonment.
Conclusions:
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Count 1:
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18 months; imprisonment.
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Restraining order sought to
commence from date of sentence for an indeterminate period in the following
terms:
1. That the Defendant be prohibited from
approaching or contacting, directly or indirectly the complainant, other than
any contact which is inadvertent or unavoidable;
2. That
the Defendant is prohibited from entering or loitering within 50 metres of any
premises known to him to be the home address of the complainant.
3. That the Defendant is prohibited from
entering or loitering within 50 metres of any premises known to him to be the
work address of the complainant.
4. That should the Defendant see or come into
contact with the complainant in any public or private place he must take
immediate action to avoid any breach of this Order.
Sentence and Observations of Court:
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Count 1:
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12 months’ imprisonment.
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Restraining order made
to commence from date of sentence for a period of 5 years with the conditions
indicated above.
R. MacRae, Esq., Attorney General appeared
for the Crown.
Advocate S. E. A. Dale for the Defendant.
JUDGMENT
THE DEPUTY BAILIFF:
1.
You are to
be sentenced for a single count of common assault on your former partner on 2nd
February, 2019. We do not think we
need to set out the details of the assault, but it of course took place in the
context of an argument after she returned home later than you thought had been
arranged. During the course of that
argument you slapped her twice, took her to the ground and held her head. All of these things caused injury
including bruising and abrasions and we have of course seen the photographs of those
injuries.
2.
This is
not the first assault that you have carried out on this victim, and clearly it
is an incident of domestic violence which from your record seems to
characterise often your relationship with women. We note the contents of the Social
Enquiry Report referred to by the Crown in its conclusions, and the indication
from it of a sense of entitlement to use violence by way of control or restraint.
We also note that there is a
propensity, so it seems to us, for you to blame your victims. Your record in this regard is a poor
one. We have read the
victim’s statement and it is clear that she is and remains a vulnerable
women.
3.
You have
pleaded guilty and you deserve full credit for a guilty plea. We have listened with care to the
submissions that your counsel has made and in particular with regard to the
restraining order it seems to us that we should not make such an order for an
indeterminate period. Accordingly
we make a restraining order in terms of the enhanced request made by the
Attorney General but for a period of 5 years.
4.
Turning to
the issue of sentence, you have been given on a number of occasions in the past
the opportunity to address your offending within the context of a non-custodial
disposal. This is clearly no longer
available to you. It has failed,
and inevitably you must receive a custodial sentence. We would strongly urge you to engage
with whatever help is available to you to ensure if it is possible, that you do
not return before us again. We have
in mind that the longest sentence you have previously served, and indeed the
last sentence you served, was one of 6 months’ imprisonment, and it
appears to us in the context of the basis of plea on which we sentence you a
leap to 18 months’ moved for by the Crown would be too high.
5.
You are
accordingly sentenced to 12 months’ imprisonment.
Authorities
AG
v Crabtree [2017] JRC 143.
AG
v Duffy [2017] JRC 131.
AG
v Nicolle [2018] JRC 139.
Crime (Disorderly Conduct and
Harassment) (Jersey) Law 2008.
Attorney General v Rawlinson, 21
August 2018, Magistrate’s Court Judgment