Lian Harris [2019] EWCA Crim 1678

The appellant pleaded guilty on the day of trial to breach of a non-molestation order and was sentenced to 27 months’ imprisonment.

The appellant had entered into a surrogacy agreement with a couple and decided she no longer wished to hand the baby over. Protracted and acrimonious proceedings took place in the family court and custody was granted to the couple. The appellant was previously convicted of stalking the judge hearing the case, and the CAFCASS guardian.

Following her release from custody, the appellant posted on Facebook that the wife had mental problems and posted her address, this led to the non-molestation order being imposed. She was prohibited from making any posts on social media containing abusive or derogatory comments about the couple.

The order was repeatedly breached over 6 weeks causing considerable distress to the wife.

The grounds for appeal were that the offence was placed into the wrong category, allowance ought to have been made for the appellant’s mental health difficulties, and the judge should have treated her as suffering from a mental disorder for the purposes of the sentencing guideline. Finally, it was submitted that the sentence should have been suspended.

Held: this was a persistent breach causing serious distress, and the judge was right to place it in category 1A. The judge, in her sentencing remarks, did not go into the psychiatric matters as fully as might have been desirable but the Court did not consider that the appellant’s mental health required the judge to impose a lower sentence than that imposed. The question of suspension did not arise given the length of the sentence.

The appeal was dismissed.