Suspended Sentence for Violent GBH

Case study summary

Our client was charged with causing grievous bodily harm with intent alongside his son after another male was left with life-changing wounds to his face. We managed to get this offence lowered meaning our client could avoid going to prison.

Case study

Our client came to us after being charged with his son for causing grievous bodily harm with intent. Our client's son had a verbal altercation with another male which led to the other male attempting to run over our client and his son. An altercation ensued where the male was left with life-changing stab wounds to his face.

Our client's case was that he was at the scene in order to protect his son and that once the male had tried to run them both over it was his job to try and protect his son from any harm. The matter went to trial and although our client was convicted, we managed to lower the offence to causing grievous bodily harm rather than causing grievous bodily harm with intent. This was a crucial victory as the maximum sentence for the more serious offence would have been life imprisonment.

We worked hard to try and present to the Judge that our client found himself in a dangerous situation and he and his son had to do whatever they could to protect themselves from further injury. The prosecution tried to have both defendants sentenced on the basis that they took a weapon to the scene and therefore increased the culpability.

We successfully illustrated to the court that there was no evidence to suggest this was the case and that upon our thorough review of the CCTV, it may have been the case that the complainant himself brought a weapon to the scene.

At the sentencing we presented a lot of mitigation to support the fact that our client should not go to prison for this offence. We had to work very hard on this as it was highly likely to be the case. Due to our hard work and dedication, we were able to ensure that this did not happen and our client was handed a suspended sentence. Our client was extremely relieved and pleased with this result as he was well aware that he may well have ended up in prison.