R v Tyrone McNamara

In sentencing for breach of a Sexual Harm Prevention Order, seriousness is assessed by reference to the order’s protective purpose, the original offending and the risk of harm arising from the breach. Actual harm is unnecessary where the breach risked very serious harm. Prolonged prohibited contact may aggravate the offence. The protected person’s consent or proximity to adulthood does not prevent a high-culpability assessment where the order was intended to prevent that contact. Personal mitigation must be weighed, but appellate interference is justified only where the sentence is wrong in principle or manifestly excessive.

The appellant was convicted at the Crown Court at Woolwich of breaching a Sexual Harm Prevention Order by having contact with a 17-year-old girl. He argued that he reasonably believed she was 18 and that the contact was consensual. The order had been made after serious offences committed when he was 17, including child abduction and sexual exploitation of a child.

On 20 October 2025 the trial judge imposed three years’ imprisonment. The appellant appealed against sentence with permission from the single judge, challenging the categorisation of culpability and harm, the treatment of the continuing relationship as aggravating, the weight given to personal mitigation and the refusal to suspend the sentence.

1. Appeal dismissed. The three-year sentence was neither wrong in principle nor manifestly excessive.
2. The sentencing judge was well placed to assess culpability and harm, having presided over the trial. The order had been made precisely to prohibit the appellant’s contact with girls under 18. Its conditions required informed parental or guardian consent and express Social Services approval. Those conditions were absent, and contact with the girl would not have been permitted. The breach was therefore properly assessed as level A, high culpability.
3. Category 1 harm was available because the breach risked very serious harm. The court was entitled to consider the circumstances of the original offending, the pre-sentence report and the Probation Service’s assessment that the appellant posed a high risk of harm to children and vulnerable girls. The girl’s willingness to lie for the appellant was also a relevant concern.
4. The offence was correctly placed in category 1A, with a three-year starting point. The judge was entitled to treat the appellant’s contact with the girl over several months as a significant aggravating feature. The guideline identified a further offence not separately prosecuted as an aggravating factor, and the duration of the prohibited contact materially increased the seriousness of the breach.
5. The judge expressly considered the appellant’s age, troubled upbringing and employment references. Those matters balanced the aggravating feature but did not reduce the sentence below the three-year starting point. As that starting point was also the finishing point, suspension was not available.

1. Court of Appeal (Criminal Division): On 19 December 2025, the appeal against sentence was dismissed. [2025] EWCA Crim 1783
2. Crown Court at Woolwich: The appellant was convicted on 21 August 2025 and sentenced on 20 October 2025 to three years’ imprisonment.