Appeals against Sexual Offences Prevention Orders
| Date | 01 February 2012 |
| DOI | 10.1350/1740-5580-76.1.18 |
| Author | Alisdair A. Gillespie |
| Published date | 01 February 2012 |
| Subject Matter | Court of Appeal |
dealt with for a single isolated offence; they could not; the act of each
appellant had to be considered in the context of the widespread public
disorder that was taking place and in the judgment of the court none of
these offences could be said to have been committed in isolation from
that disorder.
(iii) Handling stolen goods
The Court of Appeal drew a line between offences that arose from and
were directly connected with the disorder (such as handling stolen
goods) and those which were intrinsic to the disorder (such as incite-
ment and burglary); in the view of the court both could be said to be
aggravating features of the offence albeit that offences connected intrin-
sically to the disorder fall higher on the scale of aggravation. Although
close both in physical proximity to scene of the disorder and in time to
the burglary in which the goods were stolen, Craven, Beswick or Carter
could not be said to have contributed to the public disorder, and their
sentences should recognise this distinction.
James Roebuck
Appeals against Sexual Offences Prevention Orders
Rv Hoath; Rv Standage [2011] EWCA Crim 274
Keywords Appeal; Sexual offences prevention orders; Powers of the
Court of Appeal; Variation
The Court of Appeal was asked to deal with two cases which raised a
question about the powers of the Court of Appeal to consider an appeal
against a decision to refuse to vary a sexual offences prevention order
(SOPO).
Hoath was convicted in 2007 of various offences relating to indecent
photographs of children and was sentenced to an extended sentence of
five years’ imprisonment, comprising a custodial term of three years and
an extended licence of two years. He was also required to comply with
the notification requirements indefinitely. The terms of the SOPO im-
posed included restrictions on the use of the internet, unsupervised
access to a child under 18 and residing at a location where a child under
18 also lived. When Hoath was released from prison he could not return
to the matrimonial home as his 16-year-old daughter was living there.
He also owned his own business and argued that the restriction on the
internet inhibited his business.
He applied to the Crown Court to vary the SOPO, but the judge
refused the application, partly because he held that it was too soon to
make a decision on whether to relax the prohibitions and that it would
be more appropriate to do so at the time his licence period ended.
Standage was convicted in 2007 of offences relating to indecent
photographs of a child but also one count of attempting to engage in
The Journal of Criminal Law
18
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