R v Aman Habibi

This is an appeal against sentence brought with leave of the single judge.

On 30 June 2025 the appellant was sentenced at Isleworth Crown Court for three offences which had been committed on 18 July 2022. These were two offences of assault on an emergency worker and one offence of racially aggravated intentional harassment, alarm and distress, contrary to section 31(1) (b) of the Crime and Disorder Act 1988. The appellant had on earlier occasions pleaded guilty to these offences at the start of his trial.

The appellant was sentenced to 15 months' imprisonment for the first of the assault on emergency worker offences, 12 months' imprisonment for the second such offence and a sentence of 12 months for the racially aggravated harassment offence. These sentences were concurrent.

On the same occasion the appellant was sentenced to 3 months' imprisonment consecutive for the offence of harassment without violence. This latter offence related to a threatening text message that the appellant had sent to his wife on 30 October 2024. No evidence was offered on a charge of making a threat to kill relating to the same incident after the appellant's wife made a withdrawal statement. The appellant also admitted to a further offence of failure to surrender, contrary to section 6 of the Bail Act 1976, and no separate penalty was imposed.

The appeal relates only to the sentences imposed for the offences committed on 18 July 2022. By the time of this appeal hearing the appellant had been released from custody. He had served a substantial part of the sentences on remand prior to the sentencing hearing.

The appellant was represented before us by Mr Mark Kimsey, who was also counsel at the sentencing hearing. He has had no recent contact with the appellant, but he has no instructions to do anything other than to proceed with the appeal, and he did so. We are grateful to Mr Kimsey for his helpful assistance.

The facts can be relatively shortly stated. At about 7 pm on 18 July 2022 police were called to the appellant's home in Northolt because of reports from his children about his erratic and drunken behaviour. A male police officer, PC Norman, attempted to persuade the appellant to leave the address to allow for calm to be restored at the house. Instead, the appellant turned his drunken anger upon the officers. First, he began shouting at PC Norman, and a dumbbell that he had taken up was dropped causing a minor injury (a bruise) to PC Norman's elbow. Then, having been restrained, placed into handcuffs and arrested, the appellant attempted to punch PC Norman and grabbed the wrist of a female officer, PC Studley, and squeezed it hard. The appellant shouted out a threat to "fucking break that". The appellant's verbal aggression and threats to attack the police continued, with him making further attempts to punch PC Norman and to bite both officers. There was a basis of plea which was accepted by the prosecution to the effect that whilst he had picked up the dumbbell in the heat of the moment, the appellant had no intention of using it as a weapon against PC Norman.

Following the assaults on the two police officers, the appellant was taken to Acton Police Station, where he continued to be aggressive and non-compliant. Whilst in a cell, the appellant racially abused a black police officer, PC McFarlane, using the deeply offensive word "nigger" twice.

Neither PC Norman nor PC Studley needed medical attention. Each of the three officers provided a victim impact statement.

The appellant was aged 42 in July 2022. At the time of these offences the appellant had thirteen previous convictions, seven of which were for offences against the person. A number of these had been committed in a domestic context.

The appellant committed further offences after the offences to which this appeal relates.

Following the threatening text messages on 30 October 2024, the appellant was remanded in custody and he remained in custody for a period of just under 8 months until the sentencing hearing on 30 June 2025. For much of this period the appellant was on technical bail for the offences committed in July 2022, but on 7 May 2025 bail was revoked for the 2025 offences. It is for this reason that he has already been released from prison.

The sentencing judge had before him two pre-sentencing reports. The second of these reports (an addendum pre-sentence report dated 10 June 2025) stated that the appellant showed no remorse, had failed to take any responsibility for his offending and lacked any insight into his behaviour. He continuously sought to blame his wife for his behaviour. The appellant is unemployed and is not motivated to address his alcohol abuse. The report writer expressed the view that to the extent that the appellant asserted that he was making positive changes to his behaviour, this was superficial. The writer also expressed the view that it was highly likely that upon release the appellant's offending behaviour was likely to escalate in seriousness should he return to the family home as he intended to do. The writer stated that the appellant posed a high risk of serious harm to his family. The appellant's wife has expressed a wish to reconcile with him. She suffers from serious kidney disease and she has expressed the hope that he will assist her whilst she undergoes treatment.

In his sentencing remarks the judge made clear that he would pass a sentence for the offences on 18 July 2022 which reflected the totality of the criminality involved. This means that the sentence of 15 months took account of both of the assaulting an emergency worker offences and also took account of the criminality involved in the racially aggravated harassment offence.

There is a sentencing guideline for the offence of assault. Prosecution and defence were in agreement that the offences committed by the appellant were in culpability category A as there had been a prolonged and persistent assault. The prosecution contended that the assault on PC Norman fell in harm category 1 (more than minor physical or psychological harm/distress) and that the assault on PC Studley was in harm category 2 (minor physical or psychological harm/distress). The defence contended that both assaults fell within harm category 3 (no or very low-level physical harm and/or distress). The judge decided that both offences fell within harm category 2. In our judgment the judge was entitled and indeed right to place the offending in category A2 and Mr Kimsey does not invite us to conclude otherwise.

This means that the starting point for each offence before the aggravation arising from the fact that this was an assault on an emergency worker was a medium-level community order with a category range from a low-level community order to 16 weeks' custody. The sentencing guideline states that where the sentence is being imposed for the aggravated offence of assault on an emergency worker, the court should apply an appropriate uplift to the sentence in accordance with the guideline and that the uplifted sentence may considerably exceed the basic offence category range. For category A2 the guideline states that the sentencing judge should consider a significantly more onerous penalty of the same type or consider a more severe type of sentence than for the basic offence.

As for the racially aggravated harassment offence, there is once again a relevant sentencing guideline and the parties again differed on the right categorisation. The Crown placed culpability in the lowest category (lesser culpability) as the offence was limited in scope and duration and there was little or no planning. The Crown said that the harm category should be category 1 because of very significant distress and/or significant psychological harm caused to the victim. The defence said that the offence was in harm category 3 because there had been limited distress or harm caused to the victim. It is clear from the sentencing remarks that the judge accepted the defence submission as there was no evidence that the officer had sought professional help. This means that the starting point for the racially aggravated harassment offence was a band B5, not a band C5 as the sentencing remarks state, and a sentencing range from a discharge to a low-level community order.

The judge said that there were a number of serious aggravating factors: there were three separate offences on 18 July 2022 that had to be taken into account; the appellant had a number of previous convictions for offences against the person; the appellant was in breach of a suspended sentence order; and he was drunk. The judge said that he would give the appellant credit of 10 % for his pleas on the day of trial.

As we have said, the judge imposed sentences of 15 months and 12 months for each of the assault on emergency worker offence and 12 months for the racially aggravated harassment offence, all concurrent. As the appellant and his wife were apparently likely to be reconciled, no request was made for a restraining order, and so none was made. As the judge said that the 10 % credit would be given for the guilty pleas, this is equivalent to a sentence of about 16-and-a-half months before credit for plea.

The sentencing guideline for assault on an emergency worker says that the sentencer should state in open court what the sentence would have been without that element of aggravation. The sentencing judge did not do this, but his sentence was not invalidated because of this failure.

On behalf of the appellant Mr Kimsey submitted that the sentence of 15 months' imprisonment for the offences committed on 22 July 2022 was manifestly excessive. We are unable to accept this submission. Quite apart from the aggravation arising from the fact that the offending involved an assault on an emergency worker, there were a substantial number of other aggravating features in this case which justified a significant increase from the starting point for one offence of assault: the sentence had to take account of the criminality involved in the three offences, not a single offence; the offence of aggravated racial harassment was against a police officer in the course of his duties; the offences were committed during the operational period of a suspended sentence; the appellant was drunk; he had a number of relevant previous offences; it was a very concerning feature that the appellant had demonstrated no remorse or insight into his offending and that the addendum pre-sentence report said that he poses a risk of serious harm to family members. In addition to these aggravating features, the sentencing guideline makes clear that a significant uplift from the sentence for simple assault is appropriate in assault on emergency worker cases and that this may result in a sentence which considerably exceeds the category range.

Having taken all of those matters into account, we consider that the sentence that was imposed by the judge, though perhaps severe, was not manifestly excessive. The offence of assaulting an emergency worker is a significantly more serious offence than common assault, as indicated by the fact that Parliament has set a maximum sentence for common assault of 6 months' imprisonment whereas the maximum sentence for assault on an emergency worker is 2 years' imprisonment. Emergency workers including police officers have to place themselves in dangerous situations in order to protect the public and it is right that assaults upon them should be regarded more seriously than other assaults. As we have said, there were a number of additional aggravating features in this case beyond the aggravating feature that the assaults were on emergency workers, which meant that in all the circumstances the sentence of 15 months for this series of three offences was not manifestly excessive.

As for the offence of aggravated racial harassment, this was taken into account in the total sentence of 15 months, and the sentence of 12 months concurrent for this offence is not manifestly excessive. As the appellant was sentenced to a period of imprisonment for the assaults on emergency workers, it was appropriate to impose a concurrent sentence of imprisonment rather than a community order for this offence. The judge found that the level of racial aggravation was significant: the offence was committed against a police officer; it took place whilst the appellant was drunk; and it took place during the operational period of a suspended sentence order.

For all these reasons, the appeal is dismissed.