Frustrations of Being a Magistrate: Episode 4: Charge Deflation

If a decision is made to charge someone with an offence, it is of fundamental importance that the correct offence is charged.

Unfortunately that doesn't always happen, which can result in an offender being convicted and punished for a lesser offence than the one they actually committed. This phenomenon, which we shall refer to as charge deflation, is unjust for the victim and can erode public confidence in the criminal justice system.

We have previously mentioned charge deflation in the case of Campbell vs. Regina, which was heard by HHJ Robert Linford at Truro Crown Court on 8th August 2020.

In that case the Judge was clearly unimpressed that the CPS charged the defendant with assault by beating, when the injuries suffered by the victim were more consistent with a charge of Assault Occasioning Actual Bodily Harm (ABH).

In July 2017 a Liverpool doorman, Stephen Bond, was attacked by a bottle-wielding woman as he tried to break up a drunken brawl outside his place of work.

The offender in that case, Sophie Robson, smashed the glass bottle over doorman's head leaving a nasty gash that was pouring with blood. Despite the severity of Mr Bond's injuries and aggravating features of the offence, the CPS decided to charge Robson with assault by beating instead of ABH.

According to CPS's guidelines a charge of ABH is normally appropriate in cases where the victim sustains serious injuries.

Serious injuries include damaged teeth or bones, extensive and severe bruising, cuts requiring suturing and those that result in loss of consciousness. The presence of certain other aggravating factors - repeated threats, headbutting, kicking, punching, use of a weapon, vulnerable targeted victim etc - might also suggest the appropriateness of an ABH charge.

Assault by beating, a lesser charge, is usually more appropriate in cases where the victim's injuries are limited to grazes, scratches, abrasions, minor bruising, reddening of the skin, swelling and superficial cuts.

ABH, an offence contrary to section 47 of the Offences Against the Person Act 1861, has a maximum penalty of 26 weeks' custody on summary conviction; 7 years' custody on conviction on indictment. Assault by beating, an offence contrary to section 39 of the Criminal Justice Act 1988, has a maximum penalty of  26 weeks' custody on summary conviction.

If the CPS incorrectly charges the lesser offence, that could mean the perpetrator of a very serious assault ends up being sentenced to weeks in custody when the offence was worthy of months or years in custody had the alternative (more appropriate) charge been laid.

Bearing in mind the normal health warning that you can't always rely on the completeness or accuracy of reports in the local press, on the basis of the limited information available this case has the distinct whiff of ABH about it - the victim suffered a broken nose in a vicious, unprovoked assault that was filmed and uploaded to social media presumably for the entertainment of others - yet the perpetrator was only charged with and sentenced for the lesser offence.

Trust me that this is not an isolated example of charge deflation. As the earlier examples demonstrate, there have been other cases where ABH has been downgraded to assault by beating, seemingly for the sake of expedience or convenience. Such decisions are simply wrong.

The court can only deal with the offences that appear before it. Those offences must be charged correctly if there is to be any prospect of the sentence fitting the crime.