General sentencing issues
| Published date | 01 September 2020 |
| DOI | 10.1177/0264550520933723 |
| Date | 01 September 2020 |
| Subject Matter | In court |
In court
Nigel Stone, Visiting Fellow in the School of Psychology, University of East Anglia,
reviews recent appeal judgments and other judicial developments that inform sen-
tencing and early release.
General sentencing issues
Blackmailing mother: Balancing offence aggravation with offender
mitigation
Aged in her early 20s, R. had communicated with X. (a former repeat but casual
sexual partner) for around 12 months, first telling him falsely that she was pregnant
by him (she had been genuinely pregnant by him previously and he had paid for her
abortion) and demanding money to pay for a further termination, warning him that
otherwise she would give birth. She went on to tell him sequentially that his son had
been born, was seriously ill, had been adopted and had died. He had paid her in
total nearly £30,000 as his contribution towards the ‘child’, including his ‘funeral’,
absorbing his savings and causing him to incur considerable debt. When X. first
suspected the truth and confronted her, warning her that he would inform the police,
she threatened to tell the police that he had raped her. His partner began to receive
anonymous messages by Facebook, originating from R. He continued to give her
money. Following prolonged and unexplained delay between complaint and pro-
secution she eventually pleaded guilty to a single count of blackmail. She had no
prior convictions but shortly before meeting X. online had incurred a caution for theft
arising from money missing from her father’s home.
A pre-sentence report (PSR) recorded that R. had thought that her relationship
with X. was more serious than he had later described it and had been hurt and upset
on discovering that he had started a new relationship. The probation officer con-
cluded that feelings of hurt, resentment, and jealousy had been the main drivers
behind her offending rather than money, which she apparently did not need. Her
offending appeared out-of-character and had occurred in circumstances which
were considered unlikely to be repeated if appropriate support and interventions
were put in place. Full-time mother of two children aged three and 14 months and
pregnant with a third child by an on–off partner, she was reliant on Universal Credit.
Probation Journal
2020, Vol. 67(3) 305–318
ªThe Author(s) 2020
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DOI: 10.1177/0264550520933723
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The Journal of Community and Criminal Justice
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