R v Scott Cowell

This is another appeal primarily concerned with the guideline on the imposition of community and custodial sentences ("the relevant guideline") and whether or not the sentence imposed on the appellant should have been suspended.

The appellant is now 33. On 27 July 2020 he pleaded guilty to one count of breach of a non-molestation order and one count of assault by beating. There were delays because, amongst other things, the appellant served a term of imprisonment for a separate offence and was also involved in another trial on another matter.

On 9 November 2022 in the Crown Court at Luton, before Ms Recorder Powell KC ("the judge") the appellant was sentenced to 12 months' imprisonment for breach of the non-molestation order, with no separate penalty for the assault. That was a term of immediate imprisonment. He appeals against that sentence with leave of the single judge. The appeal is based on the submission that either there should have been a community order, or that any term of imprisonment should have been suspended.

The complainant Ms Patel is the appellant's ex-partner. Their relationship began in 2018 and a daughter was born in August 2019. Thereafter the relationship deteriorated quickly and on 12 November 2019, a non-molestation order was imposed by Watford Family Court. That order prohibited the appellant from using or threatening violence against Ms Patel, sending threatening communications to Ms Patel, or from going within 100 metres of an address where the appellant knew Ms Patel was residing.

Just as the first pandemic lockdown began in March 2020, the judge found that the appellant had unilaterally decided to move back in with Ms Patel. The judge said she had no doubt that the appellant put pressure on Ms Patel to give him her address and to allow him to visit her there and to stay. The judge also said that she was "entirely satisfied that she [Ms Patel] did not freely consent to you being there."

The appellant went to her address in mid-March 2020 and then again on 27 March when he stayed for a number of days. All that of course was in breach of the non-molestation order, which was count 1.

The events surrounding count 2 are these. On 2 April 2020 the appellant became furious that Ms Patel had not done the washing up. He shouted at her, which caused her to cry. She went into her bedroom to lie on the bed. The appellant followed her in and was clearly angry. He lifted the bed frame off the ground so that she was tipped out of bed a