Template Letter to AG re: Sam Pybus sentence

Many people have been saddened and horrified by the sentence handed down to Sam Pybus for the murder of Sophie Moss. He had pleaded guilty to manslaughter, but not to murder, using the so-called ‘rough sex defence’ that his violence towards her, in this case strangulation, had at the outset been consensual. His plea to manslaughter was accepted and he was jailed for 4 years and 8 months.

A number of people have asked how a sentence can be reviewed as ‘unduly lenient.’ It is done through the Attorney General’s office. A template letter is provided here.

Attorney General’s Office 

By email: uls.referrals@attorneygeneral.gov.uk

Date: [before 4 October 2021]

Dear Attorney General

I am writing to you to request a review of the sentence of Sam Pybus, passed at Teesside Crown Court on 7 September 2021, as unduly lenient. 

The sentence was one of four years and eight months imposed for manslaughter. Pybus had strangled Sophie Moss to death, while he was intoxicated. Although he said he could not remember what had happened, he entered a guilty plea saying it had occurred during consensual sexual activity. 

The Sentencing Guidelines state that where death “was caused in the course of an unlawful act which carried a high risk of death or GBH which was or ought to have been obvious to the offender” the appropriate category for sentencing is Category B, high culpability, which carries a starting point of 12 years custody. It ought to be obvious to anybody that strangulation carries a high risk of death or GBH. 

I would ask you to refer the sentence to the Court of Appeal as unduly lenient.

Yours sincerely

Suspended sentencing: the case of Javed Miah

This is a blog about sentencing, and outrage, and outrageous sentencing.

In particular, it’s about this case of sexual assault perpetrated by a stranger, reported in the Mirror as “Dad who attacked woman walking home at night avoids jail as he ‘would lose his job.’”

The facts are thrown into particularly sharp relief this week, in the wake of the abduction and murder of Sarah Everard. The defendant, Javed Miah, walked behind the victim and bumped into her, asking her the time. After following her for a minute, he groped her bottom, pushed her to the ground, and moved his hand from her crotch up to her chest. The victim managed to connect an emergency SOS call on her mobile phone at which point he ran away. 

Miah was given a six month sentence, suspended for two years. He will also have to complete 250 hours of unpaid work, complete the sex offenders rehabilitation programme, and sign the sex offenders register for seven years. 

Women are justifiably outraged. How can a man push a woman to the ground, commit a sexual assault, seemingly intent on worse and yet walk free from court? 

Other commentators can point you towards the Sentencing Guidelines and point out that the judge has followed them. The Mirror reported that the judge called the attack ‘sustained.’  That would make it a Category 2, Culpability B offence, carrying a one year starting point with a range of a community order to two years custody. With both the logic and the emotion of a Sudoku puzzle, the starting point of one year is then adjusted up for location and timing (alleyway, after dark), then down for previous good character and remorse, ending at a 9 month sentence. A further 30% off is applied for a guilty plea, bringing it down to six months. The judge must then consider mitigation and whether or not the sentence can properly be suspended. Any sentence of 2 years or less is capable of being suspended – and there are good reasons for this: if someone loses their home, job, relationship and future prospects they are more, not less, likely to reoffend. Feed the data here into the OASys machine and we have a defendant who has a secure relationship – ding! – with a job – ding! – and a home – ding! – and children, meaning community ties – ding! – which all feeds into the assessment of a low risk of reoffending. 

So yes, assuming from the limited information in the reports that it was correctly categorised, the magistrate has applied the guidelines correctly. The defendant pleaded guilty, so we don’t even need to get into whether the prosecutor has done their job well: plainly they have. Defence lawyers are often blamed for ‘getting their client off the hook,’ but since this defendant had pleaded guilty, we can blame the defence for nothing more sinister than effective mitigation, which is the right of the most egregious criminal in the land. And of course, it would be absolutely wrong to suggest the judge was entitled to sentence the defendant for what he (probably) would have done if not for the victim’s actions, rather than for what he did do. We do not sentence people for things they didn’t do – even if we think they might have done had they had the opportunity. This is fundamental to the rule of law.

And yet. 

The purpose of this blog is not to reassure readers that the system is infallible. It is to make plain that the disquiet felt by women at sentences like this is not because women have failed to understand how the guidelines work, but because the guidelines do not reflect the terror that this type of offending causes to women going about our daily lives. We can reassure readers that such sentences are not the result of outright bias or corruption – but we would, ourselves, prefer an assurance that the Sentencing Guidelines will be updated and improved.

Why is Kasabian singer Tom Meighan not in prison?

Within 24 hours of Kasabian singer Tom Meighan’s announcement that he would be stepping back for “personal reasons,” he was at Leicester Magistrates Court pleading guilty to one count of assault by beating (common assault) on his ex-fiancee.

The details of the offence as they are reported – that he was drunk, knocked her down, attempted to strangle her, pushed her into a hamster cage and threatened her with a pallet, and most prominently, that he did all of this in front of a child – are serious.

A number of people are, quite reasonably, asking how it might be that he didn’t go to prison.

The sentencing guidelines on common assault require that the judge first consider the “offence category.”

There seems to be little doubt that in this case there was greater harm (it was described as a sustained attack) and higher culpability (strangulation is understood to signify an intention to commit greater harm than may in fact have resulted), placing it firmly into Category 1, the most serious category.

The court then moves on to the starting point and category range.

The starting point for a Category 1 offence is a high level community order, which is then adjusted up or down depending on aggravating and mitigating factors.

Aggravating factors will include that the offence was committed in the presence of a child and while under the influence of alcohol. Mitigating factors would have been remorse and his claimed commitment to addressing an alcohol dependency. Add to that the credit he is given for a guilty plea, and the adjustment is up and back down again to the starting point for a Category 1 assault.

This table sets out what is meant by a ‘low’ ‘medium’ or ‘high’ level community order. Meighan was given 200 hours unpaid work and a rehabilitation requirement, placing this at the upper end of the high level community order band, narrowly missing the custody threshold.

All that this means, of course, is that the sentence is in line with the Sentencing Guidelines. It doesn’t mean that the Sentencing Guidelines are beyond criticism.

The Centre for Women’s Justice has campaigned for non-fatal strangulation to be made a specific crime, as it is under-charged when treated as common assault, and other organisations have campaigned to make misogyny a hate crime. It may well be that sentencing in domestic abuse cases needs reform – but as of today, these are the guidelines that continue to apply, and may go some way to explaining why cases like these continue to attract non-custodial sentences.