Lee Parsons [2019] EWCA Crim 1451

Lee Parsons [2019] EWCA Crim 1451 concerned an appeal against sentence by Mr Lee Parsons, heard by the Court of Appeal (Lord Justice Gross, Mrs Justice McGowan and Mr Justice Butcher). The appeal was allowed in part and the sentence was reduced.

Mr Parsons, aged 52, pleaded guilty in the magistrates’ court to breach of a restraining order contrary to section 5 of the Protection from Harassment Act 1997 and harassment without violence contrary to section 2 of the same Act. He was committed for sentence to the Crown Court at Chelmsford, where on 7 January 2019 he was sentenced to three years’ imprisonment for the breach and four months concurrent for the harassment.

The offending arose from Mr Parsons’ harassment of his former wife, with whom he had been in a relationship for approximately 20 years and had four children. Their relationship had broken down and during the breakdown the complainant had suffered physical and mental abuse. They had separated and a protective order had been imposed. Mr Parsons had an extensive history of similar offending. On 22 October 2014 he received a community order and a two-year restraining order. On 3 November 2014 he was sentenced for two breaches of that order. On 2 March 2015 he was sentenced for battery and breach. On 8 October 2015 he received a suspended sentence for four breaches. On 20 November 2015 he received a 16-month suspended sentence for seven breaches and a five-year restraining order was imposed. On 30 June 2016 he was sentenced to 24 months’ imprisonment for further breach and commission of an offence during the operational period. He also had a caution for harassment of a former business partner in 2014.

By summer 2018 the complainant felt it might be appropriate to permit text contact regarding the children and outstanding financial commitments. By December 2018 she had tired of his behaviour and blocked his telephone. Between 2 and 15 December there were approximately 40 messages in which he tried to contact her. The messages were not threatening but were persistent. He had become aware that she had formed another relationship, which made him angry. He repeatedly asked her to unlock the telephone, claimed he had changed and prison had improved him, and offered money before becoming abusive when she replied that money would be helpful. She did not respond and eventually notified the police. Mr Parsons also began sending messages to his daughter in December 2018, offering money in exchange for information about the complainant and her new partner. The messages were a combination of requests for information, threats that he would never speak to her again, that she did not deserve to be his daughter, and insults such as “your mum’s taught you well, you money grabbing bitch”. Victim personal statements from the complainant and daughter gave evidence of the distress and unhappiness the conduct had caused them and their concerns that matters might escalate.

The sentencing judge observed that Mr Parsons had made his ex-wife’s life a misery simply because it made him feel better to upset her and to damage any new relationship. He had then blamed his children for not reporting matters about their mother. He had caused his daughter great distress. He had been given many chances to address his offending behaviour through community orders, drug rehabilitation treatment and programmes, none of which had prevented him continuing to behave in this fashion. The judge considered and applied the sentencing guidelines, although neither counsel appears to have drawn her attention to the overarching principles in the domestic abuse guideline. Looking to the breach offences definitive guideline for the first matter, the judge assessed culpability as falling into category 1A, which requires very serious and/or persistent breaches. There were plainly persistent breaches. The judge assessed harm as falling into category 1, requiring that the breach must have caused very serious harm or distress. The Court of Appeal observed that it was arguable that the harm and distress, although serious, might not have been categorised as very serious harm. In any event, once that assessment was made, the sentence had to move up from the starting point to take account of the history of offending. The judge took a starting point of two years, which the Court of Appeal considered was the right place to have started. The judge then increased that term to four years based on the previous convictions.

The grounds argued that the increase was too great. Further complaint was made that the arithmetical calculation of the reduction for the guilty pleas was incorrect.

The Court of Appeal held that the distress and harm caused were to a significant extent dependent upon the previous conduct of Mr Parsons. Accordingly, if the impact on the victims of his recent and past conduct was used to put the offending into category 1A, care had to be taken not to use it again to increase the sentence within the range by too much. Taking the starting point of two years, whilst there must be a significant increase for previous offending, to double the sentence on that account was excessive. The court considered that an increase of 50 per cent was sufficient and appropriate, taking the figure to three years’ imprisonment. Mr Parsons had pleaded guilty at the very first opportunity before the magistrates’ court and was therefore entitled to a full one-third discount from that sentence, taking it to two years. The offence against his daughter was assessed correctly as meriting a six-month term of imprisonment which also had to be reduced by one-third to give full credit for the guilty plea. The judge had observed that this would in principle be served consecutively to the other sentence but had ordered it to run concurrently in order to reflect totality. Given the reduction in sentence, the application of the totality principle did not have the same effect. Accordingly, the four-month term should run consecutively to the term on the first offence, making a total of 28 months’ imprisonment.

Mrs Justice McGowan took the opportunity to make an observation of general application. If counsel for either the defence or prosecution are of the view that a judge in passing sentence has made an arithmetical error in assessing either the period to be offered by way of credit or something of that precise mathematical nature, it is incumbent on counsel to point out that error either at the time or within the slip rule period. This court should not be troubled by cases based simply on mathematical errors which can be corrected without waste of public resources and additional anxiety caused to victims and appellants. In short, the appeal was allowed, the sentence for breach of restraining order was reduced from three years to two years, the four-month consecutive term for harassment replaced the concurrent term, giving a total sentence of 28 months’ imprisonment.