R v Terry Andrews

This is an application by His Majesty's Attorney General, pursuant to section 36 of the Criminal Justice Act 1988, for leave to refer a sentence to this court on the ground that it was unduly lenient and should be increased.

It is necessary to set out in a little detail the sequence of events as the case was dealt with in the Crown Court at Canterbury for reasons which will become apparent.

The case involved an indictment containing a number of counts which included counts of non-fatal strangulation. It was listed for trial on 18 August 2025, before his Honour Judge James, the Recorder of Canterbury. On that day the offender, Terry Andrews, who is now 37 years old, entered guilty pleas to counts 1, 2, 8 and 9 on the indictment. That resulted in counts 3, 4, 5, 6 and 7 being ordered to lie on the file. It is unnecessary to say anything more about those counts.

Count 1 alleged controlling or coercive behaviour in an intimate or family relationship, contrary to section 76(1) and (11) of the Serious Crime Act 2015. The sentencing judge, who dealt with the case on 3 October 2025, Ms Recorder Nicholson, imposed a sentence of two years' imprisonment, suspended for two years on that count, together with an unpaid work requirement of 200 hours, ten days rehabilitation activity requirement and 26 sessions of Building Choices Accredited Programme. The Registrar has observed that the recording of that sentence contained one minor error, which we can correct. Instead of referring to "sessions", the order should have said "days". Other orders were made which it is unnecessary to set out.

Count 2 was an offence of inflicting grievous bodily harm, contrary to section 20 of the Offences against the Person Act 1861. The same sentence was imposed in respect of count 2 and ordered to be served concurrently.

Count 8 alleged assault occasioning actual bodily harm, contrary to section 47 of the 1861 Act, and again the same sentence was ordered to be served concurrently.

Count 9 was an offence of destroying property, contrary to section 1(1) of the Criminal Damage Act 1971. That occurred during the same incident in which count 8 had been committed. No separate penalty was imposed in respect of that offence.

The allegations arose out of a six year relationship between the offender and Miss Simmons, the complainant. They were married in 2021. The coercive and controlling behaviour occurred between 1 April 2018 and 3 November 2022. Count 2 was an offence of violence committed by the offender against the complainant at the start of that period. Counts 8 and 9 were further offences committed against her at the end of that period.

In her Achieving Best Evidence interview, and repeated in a Victim Personal Statement, the complainant alleged that frequent episodes of violence occurred throughout the course of the relationship. She alleged also that she was verbally abused by the offender in aggressive and intimidating terms on very regular occasions. The substantive offences of violence at the beginning and end of the relevant period resulted in injuries, but, she said, there were other occasions during the relationship when she had been injured. As a precaution she had taken photographs of those injuries, including injuries which she had sustained towards the start of the period. That action in itself implies a level of concern about what was happening to her. She felt the need to create a record because she could see how things were going and where they might end up. She was right.

Apart from the substantive offences of violence, the only episode causing injury which the Recorder was invited to take into account in passing sentence was an episode where the complainant had sustained a significant injury to her ankle. We have seen the photographs she took of that.

The offence in count 2 of inflicting grievous bodily harm occurred on 17 April 2019. There was an argument. Both Miss Simmons and the offender agree that there came a time when he wanted to leave the property and she did not want him to go, so she approached him. He said that she was "physically coming at" him and he forcefully pushed her away. She fell on her right arm. Her wrist was fractured in a very significant way. She required two orthopaedic operations to attempt to repair that injury, but she has been left with lifelong weakness in that wrist as a result of it.

The pair of offences which occurred at the end of the relevant period occurred on the night if 2 and 3 November 2022. On the night of 2 November the offender and the complainant had been together to a public house. On the way back in the car an argument began. It seems that the complainant wanted to buy some cocaine, but the offender did not wish to do so. They returned to the house and the argument continued. She left to go and stay at her mother's house, but returned early the following morning. The offender was asleep. She woke him up, and the argument carried on. He swore at her and was then violent towards her. He pushed her against the banister of the stairs, causing three spindles to break. He then pushed her into the wall in the hallway, causing a large bump on the right side of her head. She called the police. He left the property. He was arrested later that day. He answered "No comment" to all the questions put to him.

This was the first occasion when the complainant had involved the police. She said in her ABE interview that this was because she loved the offender and did not want to get him into trouble. It seems from what she said in that interview that she blamed herself for some of what had happened. That explains, in part, why she put up with the offender's behaviour, without seeking help from the police at any time before she did.

It is right to observe in respect of that last offence, which occurred early on 3 November 2022, that it must have been a terrifying episode for the complainant. She was first rammed into the banister of the staircase in such a way that it broke. She must have thought that she was in danger of falling and sustaining very serious injury. If she thought that, she was probably right. We have seen the photographs of the staircase. That damage is the substance of count 9. Having done that to her, the offender then rammed her head into the wall, causing the injury.

That, in short summary, sets out the relevant parts of the complaint which Miss Simmons had made to the police, supported in an ABE interview. She had attended at trial, expecting to give evidence to that effect. This is not what happened. It appears that the case was listed at 12 noon. At the end of a long afternoon of discussion, a basis of plea was agreed. This was known to the trial judge at the time, although there is no record that he approved it as an acceptable way of disposing of the case. It is, however, quite clear that the prosecution did accept it and therefore accepted that the pleas of guilty were a sufficient reflection of the criminality in the case; that it was unnecessary to continue with the other counts on the indictment; and that the offender should be sentenced accordingly. The judge’s note in the side bar on the Digital Case System says:-

“Listed for trial, P- Choudry, D- Longcroft.
D pleads guilty to the following counts:-
Count 1 - C&C (verbal assaults, threats and pushing and shoving prior to the events on the 2 and 3rd Nov)
Count 2 - S20 (push, which resulted in broken wrist)
Count 8 – ABH (Events on 3 Nov, causing her to fall into banister)
Count 9 - Crim Dam (damage to banister).
Such pleas are acceptable to the P
Sent adj for PSR to 3 Oct, not res’d ELH 1 hour.
Basis Of Plea to be reduced into writing by close of business tomorrow.
P sentencing note by 26 Sept to include VIS and any application for a restraining order.
ROCB with custody warning.”

The basis of plea which was uploaded is an important document in this case and we will set it out in full:

Before we say anything further, we would like to record the considerable assistance which we have received from Mr Hearn, who has appeared for the Attorney General, and from Miss Longcroft, who appeared for the offender in the Crown Court at Canterbury and who has appeared for him before us today.

We have enquired about the circumstances in which that basis of plea came to be accepted in view of the evidence which was available to the prosecution in the ABE interview, supported as it was by multiple photographs of injuries and (something which we have not yet mentioned) evidence of multiple messages between the offender and the complainant which contained further evidence of abuse by the offender directed at Miss Simmons. Mr Hearn, of course, as is the practice in applications of this kind, was not trial counsel. He was not present and was not responsible for the decisions that were made. He has looked at the file in order to provide such assistance as he can. Miss Longcroft was present below and was throughout the afternoon, as was her duty, doing her very best to represent the offender in order to secure the best outcome she could on his behalf. She was not present during discussions between the prosecution lawyers, nor in discussions between them and the complainant. She is only able to tell us part of the story. That means that we are not fully informed about what happened that afternoon which resulted in the basis of plea being accepted by the prosecution. It is clear that the discussion extended over a long period of time and that the matter received careful consideration. It is also clear from the record which Mr Hearn has consulted that Miss Simmons was consulted and was in a state of considerable distress. This is unsurprising in the circumstances. It seems that there had been an initial offer of fewer pleas of guilty than were ultimately entered. The complainant expressed her dissatisfaction with that first offer, which led to an improved offer. In the end, in a state of distress, she appears to have accepted that the four guilty pleas were sufficient. It is not clear whether she was ever shown the written basis of plea before it was accepted.

We can therefore only deal with the case on the basis of the material that we have. We have not been able to conduct a full enquiry into what happened, and it would be wrong for us to be understood as being critical of the prosecuting lawyers who dealt with the case in the way we have described. We must, however, say that we find it extremely surprising that this basis of plea was accepted. The case was there for trial; the witness had turned up; her evidence was both audio and video recorded and it was clear what she proposed to say. The photographs and other digital material could be placed before the jury, which would then lead the offender to decide whether he wished to give evidence in his own defence and if he so decided, to do so.

The basis of plea constitutes a substantial reduction in the seriousness of the allegations which had been made, with an inevitable consequence for sentence. Why exactly the prosecution decided that it was in the interests of justice to acquiesce in that happening is not within our knowledge. We must, for the purposes of dealing with this application, express our surprise and concern; but it would be in appropriate to go further than that.

Before moving on to other aspects of the case, we will record the way in which the Recorder dealt with the factual basis upon which she was being invited to sentence. We have read the transcript of what she said and the information she received in return from counsel. She was very concerned about what exactly the basis of plea accepted. She was concerned in particular about the expression in relation to count 1 of "a handful of occasions". What ultimately that came to was, as we have said, three occasions on which significant injuries were sustained. Those were the two occasions which were the subject of counts on the indictment, and the third occasion when an injury to the ankle was caused, as we have already observed. In addition, there was a very small number of episodes of verbal abuse and of pushing and shoving. The Recorder no doubt understood that that factual basis had all been sorted out at the trial and, understandably, did not feel that it was her place to interfere with that. She confined herself to interrogating counsel to ensure that there was clarity about the basis on which she was to sentence. It was as we have described.

There was a good deal of material before the Recorder about the offender. He is 37 years old. He has no previous convictions. He has a job. He had been married before his relationship with Miss Simmons, and had had two children with his first wife. He had formed a further relationship after the end of his relationship with the complainant. There was material before the court to suggest that neither of those relationships had involved any domestic abuse or criminal behaviour.

The pre-sentence report, which was ordered at the time when the pleas were tendered, contains significant evidence that the offender blames the complainant for everything which he did to her. There is no doubt from the ABE interview that the complainant accepts that there were occasions when she became involved in drunken arguments with him, and that no doubt is what he is referring to. Quite how he thinks that that in any way justifies violence and sustained belittling, aggressive, frightening abuse by a man against a much less powerful woman is unexplained in the pre-sentence report. That is an attitude to domestic violence which is commonly encountered in cases of this kind. It is often described as minimising the blame and is treated as a worrying aspect of the case. It means that an offender who makes protestations of that kind has very little insight into how they have behaved and what effect they have had on their victim.

The author of the pre-sentence report assessed the offender as posing a high risk of serious harm to the victim and a medium risk of serious harm to other women with whom he may form intimate relationships. The author thought that that risk was mitigated by the end of the relationship with Miss Simmons and could be further mitigated by offence focused intervention work with the offender in the community, and there was therefore a recommendation for an order of the kind which the Recorder ultimately imposed by way of requirements of the suspended sentence order. There were also multiple character references which spoke well of the offender and which confirmed the trouble-free nature of his other intimate domestic relationships.

All of that material was before the Recorder. Rather curiously perhaps in these circumstances the hearing included the reading by Miss Simmons of her Victim Personal Statement. She said this to the court in words addressed to the offender in her statement:

The Recorder was, therefore, confronted with a difficult situation. She had had the basis of plea placed before her, and then she had the victim personal statement placed before her, some of which she was required to ignore.

The Recorder classified the various offences to which the offender had pleaded guilty by reference to the offence specific guidelines. The classification in the circumstances of this case was not an easy exercise. In the event, the Recorder decided that the appropriate sentence following a trial in respect of all these matters would have been a total of 27 months' imprisonment. She then made a modest reduction for the late plea of guilty and settled on the term of two years.

As she was required to do in those circumstances, she had then to turn to the imposition guideline to decide whether the sentence could properly be suspended, or whether an immediate custodial sentence was necessary.

The Attorney General submits that that exercise resulted in a term of imprisonment which was unduly lenient, and submits that the sentence ought to have been significantly longer than two years, so that no question of suspending it should have arisen. Those submissions are advanced by reference to the guideline categories. Count 1 is said to be a category A2 offence, because there was persistent action over a prolonged period and it involved serious alarm or distress, which has had a substantial adverse effect upon the victim. That would require a starting point of 12 months' custody.

Count 2 was said to be a culpability category B case, because the factors identified for categories A and C are absent. Harm was category 3 because, although it is serious, it is not of the extreme level of seriousness which can be encountered within the context of an offence of inflicting grievous bodily harm. That, it is submitted, required a starting point of 12 months' custody, which ought to have been increased to at least 18 months' custody, to reflect the domestic context.

Count 8 was said to have been within culpability category B, because it was a prolonged and persistent assault. In this respect the Attorney General points to the photographs of injuries which show that during the episode involving the banister and the wall, Miss Simmons sustained multiple further injuries which could not be explained by those two impacts. Harm, therefore, within the context of an offence of assault occasioning actual bodily harm was, it is submitted, category 1. That would suggest a starting point of 18 months' imprisonment, which would also need to be increased to reflect the domestic abuse context. A sentence of at least two years' imprisonment, it is said, would have been justified before any reduction for mitigation and credit for the guilty plea.

It is accepted that there was some personal mitigation, although it is submitted that the lack of remorse and insight counteracted most of it.

In these circumstances, the Attorney General says that a sentence, after making appropriate adjustments for totality and for the mitigation and the guilty pleas, of at least three years' imprisonment was the least that could properly have been imposed.

Miss Longcroft, on behalf of the offender, submits in both written and persuasive oral submissions advanced to the court today that the Recorder's approach to the guidelines was impeccable; that she was fully aware of all the relevant factors in this case; and that this court should only intervene to increase the sentence where the sentencing judge has made a serious or manifest error of principle.

We have expressed surprise at the acceptance of the content of the basis of plea which was tendered on behalf of the offender. The two most surprising features of it are these. First, in contrast to the account given by Miss Simmons, it appears that the number of incidents which amounted to coercive or controlling behaviour was in fact very small. They were limited to some verbal abuse and some pushing and shoving on a handful of occasions. It may be questioned whether that would be a proper basis for a conviction for the offence of coercive and controlling behaviour. On the assumption that it is, it plainly places such an offence at a low level of seriousness.

The second most surprising feature of this basis of plea is the account of the circumstances which gave rise to the very serious injury to the wrist. As Miss Longcroft has put it, the basis of plea and the defence statement which has been lodged are very close to each other in terms of their account of how that happened. The basis of plea says that the offender accepts that he used excessive force. This means that he was saying, and it was being accepted, that it was perfectly all right for him to use some force in order to deal with what he perceived as a threat of violence from the complainant; he just went over the top. The defence statement said “In self-defence Mr Andrews pushed the complainant away from him and the complainant fell and injured her wrist. Mr Andrews denies using any unlawful force.” His admission in the basis of plea was intended to be only a limited withdrawal from that position.

Those two surprising features of the basis of plea ought, on the basis of the material before us, to have led to its rejection. We have made it clear that there may be other material, not known to us, which may have changed that position. We can only deal with the case on what we know. It is too late now for this court, on an application of this kind, to put right the failure which has apparently occurred, namely the failure to ensure that very serious allegations are either admitted or tried by a jury.

On this basis, this court is presented with a very unsatisfactory state of affairs. In our judgment, even on the basis of plea, it would have been open to the Recorder to impose a significantly longer term of imprisonment than that on which she eventually settled. We consider that many – perhaps even most – judges dealing with a case of this kind, presented with the troubling pre-sentence report, would have done so. However, in the circumstances of this case, given the minimisation of the conduct which was reflected in the basis of plea and which was accepted, we consider that it would be wrong for this court, at this stage, to find that in settling upon a term of two years' imprisonment the judge erred in imposing a term which was unduly lenient. We reach that conclusion with reluctance and hesitation, but in the circumstances of this case we consider it to be an inevitable conclusion.

Having reached it, the only remaining question is whether the Recorder misapplied the imposition guideline. She certainly applied it: she had it firmly in mind. On the one hand, she had to decide whether the nature of the offending was such that appropriate punishment could only be achieved by an immediate sentence of imprisonment. On the other, she had to consider the factors set out in the table in the imposition guideline which would favour suspension of the sentence. The Recorder properly concluded that three of them were present. She considered that there was a realistic prospect of rehabilitation in the community, the offender did not present high risk of reoffending or harm, and there was strong personal mitigation. The prospects of rehabilitation appear to be real. There is no history of a failure to respond to earlier court orders. In those circumstances we are unable to say that the Recorder's decision to suspend the term of imprisonment, once she had arrived at a sentence which enabled her to do so in law, was irrational or wrong in principle.

We therefore give leave to the Attorney General to bring this reference. By doing so we do not seek to approve what occurred in the Crown Court. We simply acknowledge that this is an arguable case.

However, for the reasons which we have set out, we decline to increase the sentences which were imposed by the judge. This leaves us with a troubling sense of injustice.

We order that the record be amended to show 26 days (not sessions) of the Building Choices Accredited Programme.