Redaction
Some court reports have had victims names redacted and some assault details redacted.
This is a difficult balance – normally I would think that I should not “censor” details but on consultation with various people I have taken the decision to redact. This is mainly to protect victims, their friends and relatives from unnecessary detail and to stop the gratification of those who seek salacious details.
In addition to the obvious “victims redaction” to protect victims details, there may also be “assault redaction” across most of the spectrum of abuse. The assaults are left in the charges, but mainly redacted when repeated with reference to the individual. I have also redacted unnecessary detail of assaults.
Redaction may obscure sometimes the legal reason for the appeal, but should make no large difference to the vital information for researchers that these documents contain. That vital information is mainly names of the perpetrators, past addresses, institutions where assaults occurred, the actual charges the perpetrators faced, and dates – on which newspapers are pathetically inaccurate and this information enables the links between people and places and abuse at various times to be ascertained.
Some transcripts may have been subject to automatic reading software and whilst effort has been made to correct these, the text should not be regarded as definitive. Common mistakes in reprinting here are that quotation marks are sometimes not correct, replaced by odd symbols.
If you think that the balance is not correct or that a particular redaction needs reconsideration, please say.
This appeal is unredacted by cathy fox blog
Index of Newspaper and Journal articles on this blog [1]
Index of Court Appeals on this blog [2]
[2004] EWCA Crim 550
No: 200306236/A7
IN THE COURT OF APPEAL CRIMINAL DIVISION
Tuesday, 17th February 2004
Lord Justice Waller
Regina
v.
Peter Saint
Computer Aided Transcript of the Stenograph Notes of Smith Bernal Wordwave Limited 190 Fleet Street London EC4A 2AG Tel No: 020 7404 1400 Fax No: 020 7831 8838 (Official Shorthand Writers to the Court)
MR HEARNDEN appeared on behalf of the APPELLANT
JUDGMENT
(As Approved by the Court)
1. HIS HONOUR JUDGE STEPHENS: On 14th October 2003, in the Crown Court at Snaresbrook, this applicant was convicted by a jury of one count of possession of indecent photographs of children under the age of 16. He was sentenced to 2 years’ imprisonment. His application for leave to appeal was refused by the Single Judge and he now seeks the leave of this Court to pursue his appeal. Leave is granted and he therefore now is the appellant.
2. The police executed a search warrant at the appellant’s home in Dagenham in September 2002 and amongst his video-tapes one was to contain indecent images of children.
3. The trial judge described the indecent aspect of the film as lasting for about 10 minutes. It consisted of two boys, whom he thought were about 12 or 13 years of age, participating in oral sexual activity and mutual masturbation. This activity was held to come within category 2 of the five levels set out by this Court in the case of R v Oliver & Ors [2003] 1 Cr App R(S) 263 . The judge expressed himself strongly so far as the seriousness of the offence was concerned. He said: “The sexual exploitation of children clearly demonstrated in these images is repugnant to right thinking members of society.” He was particularly concerned with the seriously aggravating feature which he described as the appellant’s lengthy and entrenched history of sexual abuse of children and particularly young boys.
4. The appellant, indeed, has a very bad record in this regard, with a large number of previous convictions for indecent assault on boys and gross indecency. In February 2000 this Court, on appeal from Snaresbrook Crown Court, sentenced him on two offences of indecent assault on a 14 year old boy, to 3 years’ imprisonment with an extended licence period of 5 years. As a result of the proceedings which have led to the conviction under discussion, the appellant was administratively recalled to prison for breach of that licence and will now serve the substantial prison sentence arising therein.
5. Counsel on behalf of the appellant submits three grounds of appeal. The first and main ground is that the judge failed to heed the sentencing guidelines laid down in the case of Oliver already referred to. Secondly, that he placed undue emphasise on the appellant’s previous convictions, and thirdly, that the judge gave insufficient allowance for the period of time that the applicant spent on remand as a prisoner who had been recalled. We do not consider that undue emphasis was placed on previous convictions. In the circumstances of this case they were clearly of relevance.
6. The judge gave such allowance as he saw fit for the fact that the appellant had been spending time before trial as a serving prisoner and thus the period would not count towards this sentence. That was a matter for the sentencing judge. The fact of the matter is that any sentence that was passed or will be passed in respect of the current matter will be subsumed in the sentence for which the appellant has been recalled. But counsel’s submissions in respect of the failure to heed the sentencing guidelines in the case of Oliver has merit, in our judgment. In that case the Vice-President of the Court of Appeal (Criminal Division), first of all, set out the relevant levels which have already been referred to, in the sense that we have accepted that the sexual activity depicted comes within the second of five categories. This was a contested trial and the level of sentence suggested in paragraph 16 of the judgment of the Court in Oliver is that a custodial sentence of between 6 and 12 months will generally be appropriate for showing or distributing a large number of images, at level 2 or 3. Previous convictions are relevant, say the Court of Appeal in Oliver , in paragraph 18 of that judgment.
7. Bearing in mind all these factors, we consider that the sentence of 2 years for this offence is manifestly excessive. The appropriate sentence, in our judgment, would be one of 12 months’ imprisonment. We therefore quash the sentence of 2 years and it will be substituted with a sentence of 12 months’ imprisonment. To that extent this appeal is allowed.
8. MR HEARDEN: I am grateful, there is one ancillary matter. I appear without the benefit of a representation order today.
9. LORD JUSTICE WALLER: You should have a representation order.
10. MR HEARDEN: I am grateful.
Please note that victims of abuse may be triggered by reading this information. These links are generally UK based.
- The Sanctuary for the Abused [A] has advice on how to prevent triggers.
- National Association for People Abused in Childhood [B] has a freephone helpline and has links to local support groups.
- One in Four [C]
- Havoca [D].
- Useful post on Triggers [E] from SurvivorsJustice [F] blog.
- Jim Hoppers pages on Mindfulness [G] and Meditation [H] may be useful.
- Hwaairfan blog An Indigenous Australian Approach to Healing Trauma [J]
- Survivors UK for victims and survivors of male rape or the sexual abuse of men [K]
- Voicing CSA group [L] helps arrange survivors meetings in your area
- A Prescription for me blog Various emotional support links [M]
- ShatterBoys -“Male Survivors Of Childhood Sexual Abuse Inspiring change, Through Shared Experience Whilst Building Connections…Together We Can Heal” [N]
Links
[1] Index of Newspaper and Journal articles on this blog https://cathyfox.wordpress.com/2015/05/23/newspaper-stories-index-timeline/
[2] Index of Court Appeals EWCA on this blog https://cathyfox.wordpress.com/2015/05/08/a-timeline-of-court-and-ewca-documentation-on-cathy-fox-blog/
[3] 2017 Jul 18 cathy fox blog Peter Saint 1 Court of Appeal 6 Oct 2000 https://cathyfox.wordpress.com/2017/07/18/peter-saint-1-court-of-appeal-6-oct-2000/
[4] 2017 Jul 18 cathy fox blog Peter Saint 2 Court of Appeal 17 Feb 2004 https://cathyfox.wordpress.com/2017/07/18/peter-saint-2-court-of-appeal-17-feb-2004/
[5] 2017 Jul 18 cathy fox blog Peter Saint 3 1998 Apr 5 Sunday Mirror article https://cathyfox.wordpress.com/2017/07/18/peter-saint-3-1998-apr-5-sunday-mirror-article/
[A] Sanctuary for the Abused http://abusesanctuary.blogspot.co.uk/2006/07/for-survivors-coping-with-triggers-if.html
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