R v Maria Savastano

When deciding whether to suspend a custodial sentence, the sentencing court must weigh the relevant guideline factors as an evaluative whole. It should consider the effect of immediate custody on dependent children and carers, prospects of rehabilitation, risk of further offending, and whether a suspended sentence can provide appropriate punishment.

The exercise is not a numerical comparison of factors. Immediate custody may properly be required for a serious assault on a police officer where the offender’s continuing hostility, absence of remorse, and the gravity of the assault show that appropriate punishment cannot otherwise be achieved, notwithstanding delay, limited previous offending, a guilty plea, and caring responsibilities.

The appellant pleaded guilty in the Crown Court at Preston to assault occasioning actual bodily harm contrary to section 47 of the Offences Against the Person Act 1861. The offence involved repeated blows and a bite which injured a police officer attending a domestic incident. On 15 June 2023, HHJ Mathieson imposed five months’ immediate imprisonment.

The appellant appealed against sentence, principally contending that the custodial term should have been suspended. She relied on her role as primary carer for three young children, her limited and dated antecedents, the delay before sentence, and her guilty plea. The issue was whether immediate custody was wrong in principle or manifestly excessive.

1. Appeal dismissed. The five-month immediate custodial sentence was neither wrong in principle nor manifestly excessive.
2. The sentencing judge correctly treated the offence as crossing the custody threshold and identified the relevant guideline category, with a starting point of nine months’ custody. The reduction to five months sufficiently reflected the available mitigation, including delay and the eventual guilty plea.
3. The judge had properly undertaken the guideline exercise for suspension. The impact of imprisonment upon the appellant’s three young children and those caring for them was a factor in favour of suspension. The absence of further offending during the lengthy delay also tempered the assessed risk of further violence.
4. However, the judge was entitled to find that rehabilitation prospects were undermined by the appellant’s entrenched hostility to police and lack of remorse. The seriousness of the assault on an officer performing his duty, including the health risk posed by the bite during the pandemic, supported the conclusion that appropriate punishment required immediate custody.
5. The balancing exercise is qualitative. It is for the sentencing judge to weigh the competing factors, rather than to decide the issue by counting those for and against suspension. On these facts, the need for appropriate punishment outweighed the mitigating factors and the effects on the appellant’s children.

• Court of Appeal (Criminal Division) Dismissed the appeal against sentence: [2023] EWCA Crim 965.
• Crown Court at Preston On 15 June 2023, HHJ Mathieson sentenced the appellant to five months’ immediate imprisonment for assault occasioning actual bodily harm.