Basri, R. v

In sentencing for stalking causing serious alarm or distress, the harm must be assessed in its full context. Earlier offending and conduct towards the same victim may show that the distress caused by the charged course of conduct is more serious than its short duration alone suggests.

A sentence must also reflect aggravating features, including offending on bail and prior offences against the victim. An attempt to pay a victim to abandon a serious criminal charge is a serious perversion of the course of justice. It ordinarily requires a significant consecutive sentence, or a substantial uplift in the sentence for the lead offence. Personal difficulties in custody and appropriate guilty-plea credit remain material mitigation.

The Solicitor General referred Osman Basri’s sentence under section 36 of the Criminal Justice Act 1988 as unduly lenient.

Basri had pleaded guilty at the Crown Court at Wood Green to stalking involving serious alarm or distress, contrary to section 4 A of the Protection from Harassment Act 1997, and to doing an act tending and intended to pervert the course of public justice. The stalking involved persistent messages and online dating profiles made in the victim’s name. The perverting offence was an attempt to offer the victim £5,000 to withdraw an earlier stalking allegation.

The Crown Court imposed concurrent sentences of 10 months and two months’ imprisonment. The central issue was whether the total sentence was unduly lenient.

1. The court granted leave for the reference, held that the total sentence of 10 months’ imprisonment was unduly lenient, quashed the sentences, and substituted a total of two years’ imprisonment.

2. The sentencing judge had received inadequate assistance and had sentenced without preparation for an effective plea and sentence hearing. The prosecution had understated the harm and had placed too much weight on the apparently friendly contact between the victim and Basri. That contact had to be understood against the victim’s youth when first targeted, Basri’s friendship with her parents, and her efforts to assist him because of his deafness.

3. The judge had to sentence only the admitted offences. However, Basri’s prior behaviour towards the victim was relevant to the harm caused by the later stalking: its distress built upon the distress he had already caused. The court considered that the stalking was arguably category 1B. Even if treated as category 2B, the harm justified a significant upward movement from the starting point. Further substantial aggravation arose from offending on bail and from Basri’s previous offending against the same victim.

4. The attempt to offer money for the victim to drop a serious criminal charge was itself serious. Its obvious source did not mitigate it. It added considerably to the overall criminality and required a significant consecutive sentence, or at least a substantial uplift to the lead sentence.

5. Significant weight remained due to the particular difficulties Basri faced in custody during the pandemic. He received full credit for his prompt plea to count 3, but his very late plea to count 2 merited little more than 10 per cent credit. Making every allowance for mitigation, no total below two years was appropriate. The substituted sentences were 16 months on count 2 and eight months on count 3, consecutive.

• Court of Appeal (Criminal Division): On a Solicitor General’s reference under section 36 of the Criminal Justice Act 1988, the court held the Crown Court sentence unduly lenient, quashed it, and substituted consecutive sentences totalling two years’ imprisonment: [2020] EWCA Crim 1218.
• Crown Court at Wood Green: On 9 July 2020, imposed 10 months’ imprisonment for stalking involving serious alarm or distress and two months’ imprisonment for perverting the course of public justice, concurrently.