Client Avoids Prison After Causing Grievous Bodily Harm

Case study summary

Our client accepted that, during a football match, he had punched another played. Our client was at a high risk of a prison sentence. We carefully prepared mitigation which ensured he was instead given a suspended sentence.

Case study

We were approached by a young father of two. He was a hardworking man who had never been in trouble with the police before.

He accepted that, during a football match, after arguing with another played, he lost his temper and hit this other played once. He was shocked and regretted what he had done. He had never hit anyone before and the whole thing was out of character.

Sadly, this other played suffered a serious facial injury, including broken bones. This was a really serious injury and this sort of offence can easily lead to the offender going to prison.

Our client knew this so instructed our specialist criminal defence lawyers to represent him. We explored his background to understand what had been going on. Our client had a few years where he had been unable to work due to a serious brain condition. The family had money worries and his parents were seriously unwell. Whilst none of this was an excuse for how he acted that day, it was important to put our client’s action into context. We also explored the steps that our client had taken since the assault to work on his anger management. This was important, as we needed to ensure that a court could be confident that this was an isolated incident.

We also obtained character references for our client which showed who his family and friends know him to be.

At court, our client was represented by an experienced solicitor and director of the firm. He put our client’s mitigation across confidently and clearly.

The court passed a suspended sentence and this meant that our client did not go to prison. He was very relieved that he could carry on working and supporting his family.