The court heard an appeal against sentence for breach of an anti-social behaviour order, and considered the sentence in Braxton: ‘The vital distinction between that case and the circumstances with which we are concerned is that albeit the deliberate and multiple flouting of the order is the same (indeed, there are more breaches of the ASBO in this case), the social impact of this appellant’s offending is very much less and, indeed, did not impact on the public in any way. Save for one occasion when the appellant was drunk (without there being any suggestion that he was causing a nuisance), none of these breaches have resulted from antisocial behaviour as such. The ever longer sentences have been driven only by the determination of the court to ensure that its orders limiting the appellant’s movements are not flouted.
We recognize that this is an important objective in itself. An order of the court must be obeyed. We do not accept, however, that being found in a place within the proscribed area without any evidence of associated antisocial behaviour deserves to be visited with a sentence as long as 22 months’ detention. Where breaches do not involve harassment, alarm or distress, community penalties should be considered in order to help the offender learn to live within the terms of the ASBO to which he or she is subject. In those cases when there is no available community penalty (into which category we include this case given the appellant’s refusal to *92 engage with agencies prepared to help him and the frequency of his breaches), custodial sentences which are necessary to maintain the authority of the court can be kept as short as possible. This approach is consistent with that adopted by the Court in the albeit unrelated area of shoplifting: see Page and others [2004] EWCA Crim 3358; [2005] 2 Cr.App.R.(S.) 37 (p.221) in which the Vice President spoke of the need for proportionality between the sentence and the particular offence. ‘
Judges:
Hallett LJ
Citations:
[2005] EWCA 2487
Jurisdiction:
England and Wales
Citing:
Cited – Braxton, Regina v CACD 21-May-2004
The defendant appealed a sentence of 3.5 years imprisonment for breach of an anti-social behaviour order.
Held: The sentence stood. What the offender might have considered trivial represented repeated breaches of an ASBO that had caused real . .
Cited – Page and Another, Regina v CACD 8-Dec-2004
The court considered the need for proportionate responses in sentencing to the particular offence before the court. . .
Cited by:
Cited – Steven Fenton v Regina CACD 19-Sep-2006
The defendant had been convicted of breaching his sex offender’s order. He appealed his sentence of 2.5 years. The order had included a prohibition on being drunk in a public place and using abusive or insulting behaviour toward a female.
Lists of cited by and citing cases may be incomplete.
Criminal Sentencing
Updated: 11 September 2022; Ref: scu.245159