Housing Solutions Ltd -v- Johnson
Case number: L01RG923
In the County Court at Slough
5 June 2025
Before:
His Honour Judge Richard Case
Between:
Housing Solutions Ltd
-v-
Mr D Johnson
MR P Savill appeared on behalf of The Claimant
The Defendant appeared in-person
Judgment
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HHJ CASE:
- This is my judgment in L01RG923. The claimant is Housing Solutions Ltd, represented by Mr Savill of counsel; the defendant is Dean Johnson, who represents himself. The matter comes back before me today for sentencing in relation to breaches that I found that Mr Johnson had committed of an anti-social behaviour injunction.
- I am not going to repeat the judgment that I gave on 6 May in relation to that, save to set out the breaches that I found proved beyond reasonable doubt. Those were as follows:
1) On 9 December 2024, in breach of paragraphs two and six, the defendant was screaming and shouting within 108 Sunderland Road, Maidenhead, Berkshire, SL6 5HL, the property, such that it could be heard outside the property and caused alarm and distress to a neighbour.
2) On 17 December 2024, in breach of paragraphs two and six, the defendant was shouting and banging things around the property such that it could be heard outside the property and caused alarm and distress to a neighbour.
3) On 6 January 2025, in breach of paragraph five, the defendant caused property damage by getting paint in the communal corridor and on the staircase.
4) On 10 January 2025, in the later hours of the evening and continuing into the early hours of the next morning, in breach of paragraphs two, five and six, the defendant was banging around the property and shouting, which could be heard outside the property; the defendant smashed a window within the property during this incident.
5) At approximately 7.48pm on 11 February 2025, in breach of paragraphs one and two, the police were alerted to a disturbance coming from the property. Upon the arrival of the police the defendant shouted through a window, “If you don’t go away I will cut your faces off”.
6) At approximately 11am on 13 February 2025, in breach of paragraphs two and six, the defendant was slamming the door to the property, shouting and hitting the walls of the property causing the walls of neighbouring properties to shake. - I listed the matter for sentence on 7 May 2025, the defendant had not attended on 6 May 2025 and I issued a warrant for his arrest. However, as it turned out, he attended voluntarily on 7 May, the warrant not having been executed and I discharged it; I adjourned the sentencing to today to give the defendant a further opportunity to seek legal advice. He was not represented today and at the outset of this hearing I considered an application to adjourn the hearing, which I refused for reasons which I have already given.
- As far as the law is concerned, I remind myself of the Court of Appeal’s judgment in Wigan Borough Council v Lovett [2022] EWCA Civ 1631. I do not need to set out the facts of that or the other cases which were considered by the Court of Appeal, but I do need to set out the guidance the Court of Appeal gave in relation to sentencing, and I will read from sections of the judgment.
- First of all, reading from paragraph 39:
“We can start with the objectives of sentencing for breach of an order under Part 1 of the 2014 Act. As these orders are injunctions made by a civil court, the objectives in sentencing for breach are the ones applicable to civil contempt, namely in this order:
(i) ensuring future compliance with the order;
(ii) punishment, and
(iii) rehabilitation”. - Paragraph 40:
“For the same reason, that this is concerned with civil contempt, the five options available to the court when dealing with a contemnor are:
(i) An immediate order for committal to prison.
(ii) A suspended order for committal to prison, with conditions.
(iii) Adjourning the consideration of a penalty.
(iv) A fine.
(v) No order”. - Paragraph 41: “Suspension and adjournment may also provide an occasion for amendments if appropriate to the injunction itself, as well as an opportunity to impose a variety of conditions, perhaps including a positive requirement”.
- Paragraph 42:
“The maximum term that can be imposed is two years imprisonment (section 14 of the Contempt of Court Act 1981). One half of the custodial term will be served in prison before automatic release (section 258 of the Criminal Justice Act 2003). Time spent on remand is not automatically deducted, so if credit is given for that consideration should also be given to doubling the period deducted to take section 258 of the Criminal Justice Act 2003 into account”.
Pausing there, this is not a case where the defendant has been remanded in custody pending this hearing.
- Continuing from the judgment, paragraph 43:
“Custody should be reserved for the most serious breaches and for less serious cases where other methods of securing compliance with the order have failed, it is good practice to consider a penalty for each breach found and the terms of imprisonment may be concurrent or consecutive to each other. Nevertheless, consideration must also be given to the totality of the penalties imposed. Simply adding up what may well be appropriate penalties for each individual breach is likely to lead to an excessive total. A custodial sentence should never be imposed if an alternative course is sufficient and appropriate. If the court decides 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”. - Paragraph 44: “If custody is appropriate the length of the sentence should be decided without reference to whether or not it is to be suspended”; paragraph 45,
“It has been observed that suspension is usually the first way of attempting to secure compliance with the underlying order, Hale v Tanner [2001] WLR 2377 at 2381(d). However, as was done in the case of Ms Hopkins, another first option in many cases will be to adjourn the consideration of a sentence. The court can use this as an opportunity to speak directly to the contemnor about their behaviour. An indication of what sentence would have been imposed if the matter had not been adjourned is likely to be appropriate, together with a clear statement of what the consequences of good or bad conduct in the intervening period will be … In some cases the court may conclude that a fine will be sufficient. 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 and that it may be appropriate to make no order save for the finding of breach. All of these means of disposal will mean that any future breach of the order will be treated as substantially more serious”. - Paragraph 46, “The approach in crime of giving distinct consideration to the degree of harm and the degree of culpability also has application here …”. Paragraph 47, “The three levels of culpability are: (a) high culpability, very serious breach or persistent serious breaches, (b) deliberate breach falling between (a) and (c), (c) lower culpability, minor breach or breaches”.
- Paragraph 48,
“The level of harm is determined by weighing up all the factors of the case to determine the harm that was caused or was at risk of being caused by the breach or breaches. In assessing any risk of harm posed by the breaches consideration should be given to the facts or activity, which led to the order being made. The three levels of harm are: Category 1, breach causes very serious harm or distress; Category 2, cases falling between Categories 1 and 3; Category 3, breach causes little or no harm or distress”. - In paragraph 54, the Court of Appeal set out the Civil Justice Council’s proposals in a matrix giving nine starting points and ranges, which are derived from comparing Culpability A, B and C with harm, Category 1, 2 and 3. At paragraph 55 the Court of Appeal continued, “The reference to adjourned consideration of sentence indicates that the table is focussed on the first occasion in which a sentence is to be considered where a contempt has been found”.
- Paragraph 56:
“It cannot be over emphasised that the task of sentencing a defendant for breach of orders in contempt of court is a multifactorial exercise of judgment based on the particular facts and circumstances of the case before the judge. Any sentence must be just and proportionate, nothing in what has been said above is intended to detract from that. However, the approach set out above should allow judges to approach the task of sentencing in cases like these in a relatively systematic manner”. - Paragraph 57, “Finally, it bears repeating that the approach set out above is concerned with breaches of orders under Part 1 of the 2014 Act”.
- The positions of the parties at this hearing is as follows: in relation to breaches one, two, four and six, that is to say the breaches which relate to shouting and banging in the property and hitting walls, the claimant says that culpability in the matrix in Lovett is B on the basis that there has been a persistence of breach over a period of time, and harm is Category 2, the Court having found on the last occasion that alarm and distress was caused to a neighbour.
- In relation to breach three, that is the breach caused by the defendant getting paint in the communal corridor and on the staircase, the claimant says culpability is C on the basis that it might have been negligent rather than deliberate, and harm is Category 3 because little or no harm was caused to other occupants of the flats that the defendant occupied.
- In relation to breach five, that is when the police attended and the defendant shouted at them through a window, the claimant says that the Court should take account of the need after that threat was given for the police to attend in full public order kit and break the door down, and that the threat was a serious one and therefore culpability in the matrix is A.
- The claimant accepts there is no evidence of officers being particularly distressed, but invites me to consider the risk of the same and draw an inference from the nature of the threat such that the category of harm falls within Category 2.
- Although Lovett makes it clear that the Court should consider as a matter of good practice each breach separately, the claimant invites me to consider the group of breaches, one, two, four and six together, and then having identified the appropriate range from the culpability and harm matrix, to have regard to the other two breaches, one less serious and one more serious, when setting the sentence overall.
- Insofar as the defendant is concerned, he tells me that in relation to breaches one, two, four and six, he was not aware that the shouting and banging was causing distress, no one had come to tell him about it and he had said that they should have knocked on his door if there was a concern.
- However, I have already determined that he was in breach of the injunction and it seems to me his awareness or otherwise is irrelevant. He chose not to challenge the allegations as they were then on 6 May on the basis that he was not aware what he was doing was in fact causing alarm or distress and he is, I am afraid, stuck with the findings that I have made to the criminal standard.
- Insofar as the third breach is concerned, that is the paint damage, he gives an explanation that he was painting the flat after a chip-pan fire and that the paint fell from the painting equipment as he either took it downstairs or brought it upstairs from or to his flat; I am not sure that has any particular bearing on the breach as I have found it.
- Insofar as the more serious breach, that is breach five, is concerned, he tells me that the police attended on the evening before his father’s funeral; I expressed my sympathy to Mr Johnson for the occasion of his father’s death and the need to make arrangements for his funeral.
- However, as a result of the violence that I have found he threatened the police with, they attended in full riot gear and broke his door down because, as he accepted when he was addressing me this morning, he had refused to open it. I have seen the body-worn video footage of the immediate aftermath; I have no doubt that that incident was distressing to other occupants in the building.
- By way of mitigation, Mr Johnson makes important points. He tells me, and there is no challenge to this, that it is the first time he has been in trouble with the law. He tells me he is a freemason and freemasons based themselves on being upstanding members of society, so it is particularly shameful to him that I have found these breaches proved and that he is at court being sentenced for them.
- He also tells me that he has sought help for a mental health condition, which he has had for a number of years, and that he is, and I paraphrase I hope accurately, distressed that he has caused upset to his mother who has attended with him today.
- I am quite satisfied that when I look at matters in the round this is a Culpability B Harm Category 2 case.
- In relation to the breaches that involve shouting and banging within the property, whilst taking each individually might be firstly low culpability, and secondly low harm, taken together, given their persistence over a period of time from 9 December 2024 to 13 February 2025, I am satisfied they fall within Culpability B.
- In relation to two of them I have expressly found that the noises could be heard outside the property and they caused alarm and distress to a neighbour. In relation to the fourth of the four, I expressly found that the walls of neighbouring properties were shaking as a result and when I consider the repeated incidents of these breaches and the effect that might have had or risked having and has been proved to have had on the neighbours, I am satisfied that the harm level is Category 2.
- In relation to the property damage, first of all I consider culpability as being on the cusp between C, minor, and B, in the middle category. I have seen photos of the damage, this is not merely a drip of paint on the communal hallway floor; it appears to be a significant amount of paint trodden into the carpet and/or spilled on the carpet by the defendant.
- Accordingly, on balance I consider it falls within Culpability B, but in terms of the harm it is property damage of a relatively minor degree and falls within Category 3; there is no evidence of anybody particularly being distressed by it.
- Insofar as breach five is concerned, this is the most serious of all six breaches; I have said something already about the incident itself and the aftermath. It is a particularly serious breach, it is a threat of physical violence of a particularly unpleasant kind; it is a threat to use a weapon and the consequences are as I have already set out.
- In terms of culpability it clearly falls in Category B; in terms of harm, whilst there is no direct evidence of the police suffering distress or alarm as a result of the threat, I am satisfied that there was a risk of that and it was a serious risk in view of the nature of the threat and that is reflected by the nature of the response and accordingly I would have assessed the risk of harm as being on the cusp of Category 2 and Category 1.
- If I was required therefore to sentence in relation to each of those separate breaches, I would have identified the starting point as being broadly in Culpability B, Category 2, one month imprisonment. The range of sentence within that part of the matrix is from an adjourned consideration of sentence to up to three months imprisonment.
- There is nothing that I have been able to identify from the particular facts that would cause me to move away from the starting point either towards the bottom of that range or towards the top of the range and when I come to consider the mitigation advanced on the part of the defendant, his shame, this being his first involvement with proceedings such as this, whilst that has some weight, it has in my judgment relatively limited weight. Limited because shame at being in court and sentenced for these matters is almost inevitable in cases such as this, and this being first involvement with proceedings, having to be seen in the light of the fact that these proceedings were only necessary because in the first place the claimant had persuaded the Court on the balance of probabilities that the defendant’s behaviour was such that the Court should impose an anti-social behaviour injunction.
- This is not a defendant who comes to the court with no prior history apart from the six breaches; this is a defendant who comes to court having breached an anti-social behaviour injunction that it was necessary to impose against him because of his previous behaviour.
- That said, there are no aggravating features and therefore my conclusion overall is that there is no reason to depart from the starting point of one month imprisonment and that is the sentence, which I impose.
- The final exercise of my discretion is to consider whether I should suspend that sentence and if so on what terms. I remind myself of the guidance from the Court of Appeal in Lovett, which is that in order of importance the purpose of sentencing for breach of an anti social behaviour injunction is ensuring future compliance, punishment and rehabilitation.
- Given that the most important factor is ensuring future compliance, I am satisfied that a suspended sentence, which of course will hang over Mr Johnson for the period of any suspension, stands a good prospect of ensuring compliance with the injunction, if that is the term upon which it is suspended; and for that reason I consider that on this first sentencing for breach I should suspend the term of imprisonment.
- The terms of the suspension will be compliance with the existing court order, that is the anti social behaviour injunction, for a period of up to six months or until the injunction expires, whichever comes first, and I will hear submissions in a moment as to whether the term of the injunction should be extended beyond the end date which is currently the end of October 2025; that concludes my judgment.