Suspension of sentence
| DOI | 10.1177/02645505211058094a |
| Date | 01 December 2021 |
| Published date | 01 December 2021 |
| Subject Matter | In Court |
not been skewed unfairly round that aspect of B.’s offending. The judge had taken
proper account of overall fairness, having regard to the age of the child; the abuse of
trust, the number and nature of the images, the invasion of privacy caused by the
acts of voyeurism and the significant adverse impact upon two victims. She had
not exaggerated its nature or severity. The appeal was dismissed.
R v BATEMAN, [2021] 1 Cr App R(S) 54.
Suspension of sentence
Compiler’s Note The following instances where imprisonment was suspended, for
perverting justice and smuggling drugs into prison, can be contrasted with the
approach taken in Brown and Delaney (‘In Court’, September 2021).
Edited footage of fox hunt encounter: suspension upheld
When monitoring a fox hunt in early 2016 as a long-standing affiliate of an anti-
hunting organisation, G. complained to the police that he had been assaulted by
a hunt supporter when he had been challenged for trespassing on farmland, extend-
ing to repeated kicks while on the ground. He supplied footage of the incident from
his bodyworn camera but on close investigation this was found to have been doc-
tored, mainly by looping, to give a misleadingly aggravated rendition of the encoun-
ter with the apparent assailant, identified as a local farmer who denied behaving in
that way, backed by his brother who had also been present. Some 18 months later
G. was arrested on suspicion of perverting the course of justice by making a false
complaint and seeking to pass off substantially edited evidence as genuine.
When G. eventually stood trial in autumn 2020, still maintaining his version of
events, the farmer and his brother gave evidence that the defendant and another
man had ignored requests to leave their land. They had used reasonable force to
eject these trespassers and there had been some physical contact; G. had fallen
on wet and muddy ground but he had not been kicked. On G.’s conviction of one
of the two counts of perverting justice, and by now five years older, the Crown
Court judge accepted that he may not have personally altered the tape but consid-
ered that he had produced it knowing that it had been altered. He was of previous
good character, having come to no further police attention in the intervening period,
and a medical report indicated that he met the criteria for Asperger’s Syndrome and
an Autism Spectrum Disorder diagnosis, albeit without intellectual or educational
impairment. Delays in his prosecution had had a very significant detrimental
impact on his daily life and mental well-being, tests evidencing severe difficulties
in his overall functioning, with symptoms of anxiety and depression. In light of all
these considerations, including loss of good character and the impact of the pan-
demic on custodial life, the judge concluded that it was possible to suspend the sen-
tence, imposing a term of 12 months suspended for two years, with an unpaid work
requirement of 100 hours, also making a restraining order.
In court 501
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