R v Magesh Vencatachellun

On 29 August 2025, having pleaded guilty on re-arraignment before the Stratford Magistrates' Court on the day of trial, the appellant (then aged 36) was committed for sentence to the Crown Court in respect of one offence of breaching a restraining order, contrary to section 363 of the Sentencing Act 2020. On 9 January 2026 in the Crown Court at Snaresbrook before Mr Recorder Jeremy Dein KC, the appellant was sentenced to imprisonment for 20 months. He appeals against sentence with the leave of the single judge.

The appellant and the victim had been in a relationship for 5 years but had separated 3 years before the offence. On 26 September 2024 the restraining order was made against the appellant in the Snaresbrook Crown Court under section 360 of the 2020 Act, to protect the victim and two other members of her family from "further conduct which amounts to harassment or will cause fear of violence". The order prohibited the appellant from contacting the victim directly or indirectly. The order lasts for 5 years.

The appellant breached the order by telephoning the victim on 70 occasions between 23 October 2024 and 15 July 2025, the period of nearly 9 months, although we also note that there were 67 calls from the victim during that period. There is no evidence before the Court as to the nature of those calls.

The appellant was living in a flat that belonged to the victim and he had refused to leave. That was a source of disagreement and tension between the parties. The prosecution had no evidence about the content of the calls from the appellant other than what was described by the victim in her witness statement.

After the case had been committed to the Crown Court for sentence the appellant entered a basis of plea. The court ordered a Newton hearing to take place because of the differences between the appellant's account and that given by the victim in her witness statement. It appears that she did not attend a hearing on 24 October 2025 and the court directed the prosecution to establish whether she would be a willing witness at a Newton hearing. A further hearing was fixed for 9 January 2026 but on that occasion the victim did not attend. The prosecution decided to proceed without a Newton hearing on the appellant's basis of plea.

In that document the appellant accepted having made the calls set out in the prosecution’s schedule and then said:

The appellant had six convictions for nine offences between December 2020 and 26 September 2024. These included battery and criminal damage, for which he received a 9-month conditional discharge in 2022, possessing a blade in a public place in March 2023, for which he was sentenced to 4 months' imprisonment, and a section 47 assault in November 2023 and criminal damage and threatening behaviour in June 2024, for which he received community orders.

The pre-sentence report was prepared before the date of the basis of plea. The victim had bought her flat in 2021. Since then the appellant had been staying there. She had tried to get the key back from him but he refused to give it up. When he was released from prison he returned to the flat. The situation was such that on occasions the victim stayed with her mother. The author said that in her opinion the appellant showed a lack of understanding of his behaviour. He sought to justify his breaches of the court's order by saying that he had given the victim a large sum of money towards the purchase of the property and therefore he was entitled to stay there. The appellant said that when released from prison on the current sentence he intends to return to the flat.

The probation officer considered that the continuing contact over property arrangements was linked to the breaches of the order and the appellant's propensity to use abusive and controlling behaviour. The current offending demonstrates an entrenched pattern of offending related to domestic abuse, including the offences in 2024. She assessed the appellant as posing a medium risk of reconviction with a high risk of emotional or psychological harm to the victim and any future partner. He poses a high risk of serious harm to the victim.

In his sentencing remarks the judge said that he would sentence in accordance with the basis of plea and ignore any contra-indications in the victim's witness statement. Turning to the Sentencing Guideline, he said that culpability fell into category A because of the persistent breaches. The harm fell into category 2 involving neither "very serious harm or distress" nor "little or no harm or distress." He took into account all the circumstances including those which gave rise to the need for the restraining order in the first place. The offences against the victim in 2024 formed a backdrop to the current offending.

The judge said that the sentence should be placed at the top of the range for category 2A, namely 2 years because of the persistence of the breaches which commenced soon after the order was made and the aggravating features of the previous offending relating to the victim. He then made a 10 per cent reduction for the guilty plea followed by a further 10 per cent reduction for the mitigating circumstances to arrive at the sentence of 20 months.

We are most grateful to Ms Victoria Taylor for her excellent written and oral submissions. In summary she had raised originally four grounds of appeal. The Single Judge considered that only the second ground was arguable and, wisely, she decided not to apply to renew the application for leave to appeal in respect of the other three grounds. The ground upon which she has focused is as follows. She submits that the offence should have been categorised as harm category 3 as the appellant was being sentenced in line with his basis of plea. It was improper for the judge to infer that there must have been more than "little or no harm or distress".

The issue under ground 2 is whether the judge erred by placing the offence into category 2A rather than category 3A given the basis of plea. This should be seen in context. In the guideline there is a substantial degree of overlap between the sentencing ranges for categories 1A, 2A and 3A. The guideline has not been designed as a series of watertight compartments. The starting point for category 1A is 2 years' custody within a range of 1 to 4 years; for category 2A the starting point is 1 year, within a range from high-level community order to 2 years' custody; and for category 3A the starting point is 12 weeks custody within a range from medium-level community order to 1 year's custody. It will be noted that the figure of 1 year's custody is the starting point for category 2A, the top of the range for category 3A and the bottom of the range for category 1A. No doubt this caters for the wide range of circumstances with which sentencing judges have to deal.

The denials in the basis of plea that the calls were insulting or threatening or caused the victim to be in fear did not prevent the judge from reaching the conclusion that the breaches of the order did cause the victim more than "no or little harm or distress", insofar as it was permissible to draw inferences from the evidence properly before the court. But even on that basis of plea, the appellant accepted that his calls were about the flat. This was the property that the victim had purchased as her home. There had plainly been tension between the two of them over the flat. The appellant had maintained that he was entitled to be in the flat despite the fact that his relationship with the victim had ended some time ago. On any view these calls were about a sensitive subject for the victim.

A further significant feature was the background to the making of the order in the first place, namely the appellant's criminal damage to the victim's car and his abusive behaviour intended to cause her fear, which had occurred as recently as June 2024. Then there was the fact that the calls began barely a month after the order was made in the Crown Court in September 2024 and continued persistently for nearly 9 months. Viewed overall we reach the conclusion that there was adequate material before the court for the judge to infer that the victim would have suffered harm or distress which was more than “little”.

In our judgment, even if the sentence of 20 months might be considered severe, it was certainly not wrong in principle by the judge having miscategorised the offence, nor was it manifestly excessive. For these reasons the appeal must be dismissed.

We would however mention one further matter. The guidelines require any reduction in sentence for mitigation to be made before any credit for a guilty plea, whereas the judge reversed that sequence. Sometimes mathematically this can make a significant difference to the outcome, but that is not so in the present case because of the relatively small adjustments that needed to be made.