WALSALL HOUSING GROUP LIMITED v DARREN JONES

Sentencing for breach of an injunction should address three objectives: punishment, securing future compliance, and rehabilitation. The court should assess the seriousness of the breach by considering culpability and harm, then take account of aggravating and mitigating features. Custody is reserved for the most serious breaches. A suspended committal order is appropriate only where the custody threshold has been crossed, but immediate imprisonment would be disproportionate or unnecessary to secure compliance. Persistent breaches shortly after service, deliberate conduct and intimidation aggravate seriousness. Ill health, subsequent compliance and the absence of violence may mitigate it.

The claimant sought the committal of the defendant for contempt arising from breaches of an injunction prohibiting him from feeding birds in communal areas and from a later incident involving verbal abuse, intimidation of employees and property damage. At an earlier hearing the court found all alleged breaches proved beyond reasonable doubt. The sentencing hearing was delayed while the defendant was given opportunities to provide medical evidence. He ultimately relied on a limited, partly redacted GP letter.

The central issues were the appropriate categorisation and sentence for the breaches, the relevance of the defendant’s health and subsequent compliance, and whether any term of imprisonment should be suspended.

1. Sentencing objectives. The court identified punishment, securing future compliance with court orders and rehabilitation as the relevant objectives. The available responses included immediate or suspended committal, adjournment with a positive requirement, a fine or no order.
2. Custody threshold. Custody was reserved for the most serious breaches. A suspended committal order should not be imposed unless the custody threshold has first been passed.
3. Assessment of seriousness. The court adopted a stepped approach. It assessed culpability and harm separately. Culpability ranged from high culpability for very serious or persistent serious breaches, through deliberate breaches, to lower culpability or minor breaches. Harm ranged from very serious harm or distress to little or no harm or distress.
4. The bird-feeding breaches were persistent, deliberate and committed shortly after service of the injunction. They were categorised as culpability B and harm category 2, producing a B2 starting point of one month’s imprisonment, with a range from adjournment to three months. The employee incident was also categorised as B2 because of intimidation and property damage, although the absence of direct threats or violence and its one-off nature reduced its seriousness.
5. Aggravating features included the number of incidents, their proximity to service of the injunction, deliberate conduct and the targeting of a recently swept area. Mitigating features included ill health, the absence of genuine violence and the absence of further reported breaches after November 2020. The court imposed six weeks for the two most serious incidents and one month for the others, all concurrent.
6. The six-week term was suspended. Continued compliance with the injunction justified suspension and made immediate imprisonment disproportionate. Further breaches were likely to activate the suspended term, probably in addition to any further sentence.

Not an appeal. The judgment records an earlier hearing on 26 November 2021 at which the breaches were found proved, followed by sentencing on 5 April 2022.