Plymouth Community Homes Ltd v Ali Abdulrahim

I am giving judgment now in MOOPL323, the applicant in this application is Plymouth Community Homes Ltd, represented today by Mr Mulcock. The respondent is Mr Ali Abdulrahim represented by Mr Khan.

The case before me concerns an injunction order made against Mr Abdulrahim on 16 September of this year, under the Antisocial Behaviour, Crime and Policing Act, 2014. The injunction expires on 15 September 2026, and the relevant term is that Mr Abdulrahim must not enter any of the claimant's block of flats, known as Lipson Court, Greenbank Road, Plymouth, PL4 7JG, or enter the delineated areas around Lipson Court, namely Opey Lane and, more particularly, shown on the attached map. That injunction was served personally upon Mr Abdulrahim on 23 October of this year, there is no challenge to that submission made.

Sadly, Mr Abdulrahim has not complied with the injunction. The evidence in support of that is found in the statement of Mrs Sarah Chidgey dated 21 November of this year. She is a housing officer for the applicant, Plymouth Community Homes, and her evidence is that on checking the CCTV system on 11 November, she saw Mr Abdulrahim present in the building, that being 34 Lipson Court. Her evidence is that she also sighted him on 10 November 2025, getting into the lift on that same date outside of Chloe Fowler's address. I understand that Chloe Fowler has been described as Mr Abdulrahim's wife today. Those are therefore the circumstances behind the breach.

Today Mr Abdulrahim admits breaching the injunction, and so dealing with that first, I find to the criminal standard of proof that Mr Abdulrahim has breached paragraph 1 of the injunction, and so he is in contempt of court.

I then turn to sentencing. I have heard from both counsel. The objective of sentencing is to ensure future compliance with the order, punishment and rehabilitation, those objectives having been set out in the well-known case of Wigan Borough Council v Lovett [2023] 1 WLR 1443, the options before the court are committal to prison, whether that is immediate or suspended, to adjourn the penalty or a fine.

I remind myself that the general principles are that custody is reserved for the most serious of breaches and for less serious breaches, where other methods of securing compliance with the order have failed. In the most minor cases, the court may decide that the impact of the proceedings is likely to achieve the purposes of the contempt jurisdiction. In some cases, it may be appropriate to make no order, save for the finding of a breach.

I need to consider penalty today. A custodial sentence, I remind myself, should not be imposed if an alternative course is sufficient and appropriate. If I do decide to impose a term of imprisonment, that term should always be the shortest term which will achieve the purpose for which it is being imposed. If custody is appropriate, the length of the sentence should be decided, without reference to whether or not it is to be suspended.

Having heard the submission of Mr Khan, where he told me that Mr Abdulrahim would breach the order again, and intends to do so, it does not seem to me that the adjournment of the sentence as a deterrent to secure means of compliance will serve any useful purpose. Similarly, a fine, again, would not appear to do likewise.

When thinking about custody, I need to ask myself whether the custody threshold has been passed. In my view it has. This is a case where there has been a deliberate breach of the injunction, and I have been told today, in no uncertain terms, that Mr Abdulrahim intends to breach the order again if I did not impose a prison sentence. That does not, of course, bind me, but it does show this court the level of contempt that Mr Abdulrahim has.

I then give consideration to the degree of harm and the degree of culpability, set out in the well-known sentencing matrix. I bear in mind that I am looking at three levels of culpability and harm. Dealing with culpability first, in my judgment, the breach was a deliberate breach. I agree with Mr Mulcock that it falls within culpability B. Mr Abdulrahim is fully aware of the injunction order and what he can and cannot do.

With regard to the level of harm, there is no evidence before me today other than what Mr Mulcock has submitted. He contends that this is a category 1 or 2 case. I am going to treat it as a breach falling within category 2 case. I have not heard submissions to the contrary.

Having regard to the table, I categorise the breach as a category 2 culpability B. The appropriate starting point is one month. The category range within that can be adjusted to adjourn consideration up to 3 months' imprisonment. I have not heard any other aggravating factors, other than this is a deliberate breach. I have heard very little by way of mitigation from Mr Abdulrahim, other than he accepts that he has breached, so he has admitted it at the very first opportunity. He tells the court that he is now off drugs and that is why he visited. He wishes the court to commit him to prison, he is homeless and if I do not do so, he is going to breach the order again. That is therefore what I have heard.

Having considered all that I have read and heard today, the sentence that I am going to pass upon Mr Abdulrahim is as contended, a sentence of one-month duration. That seems to me to be just and proportionate. I am not going to suspend the sentence of imprisonment. The suspended sentence would serve, again, no useful purpose, and I am satisfied on what I have heard today, it will not bring about compliance with the injunction. That is my decision.

I should say that Mr Abdulrahim has spent, I am told, two days in custody, so the sentence I am going to pass is one month, less four days spent on remand. That seems to me to be just and proportionate and so that is the order that I make today.