Charged with GBH with intent section 18 - need urgent advice

[alisha_b]

Hi there, i hope you all can help...my friend has been charged with the above and has been found guilty by the Jury and also pleaded guilty.

this all happened whilst she was at home with her 2 little boys, suddenly she had an unexpected person knocking on her. This man asked for yellow pages and she refused to give it to him and she thought it was odd for him to knock on her door at a late time. He then raised his voice she got really scared and try to shut the door but he forced himself through. He went stright through the lounge and grabbed one of her boy, she screamed at him to let go, but he then asked for money. My friend grabbed her purse and with that there was a cricket bat she somehow hit him with that and he fell on the floor. She hit him few times and he had fractured skull. This guy was taken into hosiptal and was in a coma for few weeks. the doctor said he may not survive as he had severe injuries.

My friend was charged for GBH and on bail. She will be sentenced soon. She has no previous conviction, has a good character reference. She works in a school as a teacher, she helps with charities and is a good person. Given all that does she have a change of non-custodial sentence? Her barrister said there is a chance of prison sentence that she needs to prepare. My friends family are devastated and it will ruin her life is she goes in. Her 2 boys are still in a shock of they witness and scared to sleep on their own.

I would be grateful if you can let me know what can happen...will she get a suspended sentence? have there been cases where you can get non-custodial sentence? barrister tried to prove this was a self defence but jury seen the injuries but she was scared as he had her boy.

Please advice?

[Panic Button]

Pleaded guilty, and found guilty by a jury? How did that happen?

[fredpuli47]

bjohn the jury heard all the evidence (unlike you and the rest of us). They decided that, beyond any reasonable doubt, what this woman did was not done in reasonable self defence AND was done with intent to cause really serious bodily injury. They would have heard all the arguments about how frightened she was and why she acted as she did etc etc, which you suggest, and rejected them. If you don't like that then you don't trust the jury to do its job, though you may think you are slightly hampered in forming a judgment by not seeing the witnesses and the defendant testifying (if she did).

[fredpuli47]

Panic Button It's quite possible to both plead guilty and be found guilty by a jury on the same facts. If a defendant is charged with two, alternative, counts they may plead guilty to the lesser count but not guilty to the more serious one. They could then be tried on the more serious count and convicted or acquitted by the jury on that.

In this case the woman pleaded not guilty to s18 ( causing gbh with intent to do gbh to someone). That would be count one on the indictment. Count two on the indictment would be s20 ( inflicting gbh).That's an alternative count. She pleaded not guilty to count one, s18, but guilty to count two, s20. The prosecution thought they could prove s18 and so the trial went ahead on that count, the only live issue then being whether she intended to do grievous bodily harm to the man or not since, plainly, she admitted that she had unlawfully caused gbh but did not admit that she intended the victim to suffer gbh when she did so.

If that happened here, the woman can't have been claiming the legal defence of self defence. She can't say 'I'm guilty of gbh s20 assault but was acting throughout in proper self -defence, ' . Using reasonable force in self-defence would be a defence to the s20 so she'd contest that and the s18. My guess is that she said that she set out to defend herself and her child, but accepts that what she finally did went beyond reasonable force, beyond reasonable self defence, and resulted in gbh . Therefore she is guilty of s20, although with mitigation. She denied however that she ever intended the victim to suffer gbh, and so denies the s18 allegation

[alisha_b]

I saw her today and her barrister advised that she may be looking at 3 years jail sentence. Will she able to appeal? and how long does this appeal process take?

[fredpuli47]

If it's any consolation, counsel (barristers) do try to tell the client the worst result that counsel expects. If counsel says it could be 3 years he or she thinks 3 years is unappealable and within the sentencing practice and guidelines for a case on these facts. It's not possible to say further on that without the sight of all the papers and hearing all the evidence, which counsel has.

. If the sentence is such that counsel thinks it wrong and appealable they'll so advise. If so, counsel writes an opinion and drafts grounds of appeal.The appeal requires leave to proceed, it's not automatically allowed to go further. Leave is granted or refused by the Court of Appeal (in practice the papers go to a single judge of the Court to decide whether leave is granted. The single judge's decision is made on the papers submitted). The procedure is quite prompt, but this is all for later., You don't have the result of the sentencing yet !

[alisha_b]

Thank you for the info, So if say barrister feels that its appealable so how long would this take? I just want to know the time-frame?

[sara3]

she's in touch with her barrister, so why isn't she asking him, as the expert in this case?

[alisha_b]

As i mentioned before she does not want to discuss anything with me nor her parents. So we want as much info we can obtain so that we can decide on what to do with her children ie time-frame of her being away and whose looking after kids.