AG v Maguire (Royal Court : Sentencing (Criminal)) [2025] JRC 043 (14 February 2025)

JUDGMENT THE DEPUTY BAILIFF: 1. Gerard Maguire you are 57 years old, and fall to be sentenced for an offence of common assault upon a 52 year old woman known to you, who we will refer to as the victim in these remarks, who you assaulted on the night of 28 May 2024.

2. Your victim had known you for 20 years. The relationship between you was a volatile intimate one, owing to the fact that you were both heavy drinkers. Although there had been a brief relationship between the two of you some years ago, in May 2024 you were simply friends. The victim told the jury that when in drink you can become excitable, opinionated and aggressive.

3. On the 28 May, a Tuesday, when you had already both been drinking alcohol, you bumped into each other on the street, not far from your home. You purchased a bottle of vodka for your victim and you both returned to your flat, she drinking the vodka with coke and you drinking cider. At some point during the evening, probably on the evidence well after midnight, you straddled the sofa where your victim was sitting, pulled out your penis and said to her "suck my cock:" She refused, and this made you angry.

4. You pulled her off the sofa and she found herself on the carpet face down. You had one of your knees on her shoulder and at least one of your hands around her neck. Your victim told the jury you were strangling her. She told the jury "I could hear the blood rushing in my ears" . You kicked her, pulled her hair and banged her head on the floor. She was in pain; she told the jury: "My face was pushed into the carpet, the right side of my face was flat on the floor, he was squeezing my neck very hard with one hand. I felt his feet kicking me, he kicked my legs, his knee was in my side, and I could not see, there was pain all over." 5. During the assault she did not cry out as she feared that it would anger you more, and as a consequence, it appears, of losing consciousness, she wet herself.

6. She could not recall how she left your flat the next morning, but about 9.30 am she rang the doorbell of the neighbour who lived in a flat on the ground floor of the block of flats where you live. The neighbour took her in, she told him that she had been beaten up and he called the police.

7. The police arrived about 10.00 am, they found your victim curled up crying and very dishevelled. She immediately told the police about the circumstances of the assault. The police said that your victim was not drunk, but she was traumatised and very emotional. She was examined at her home by Dr Evans a forensic medical examiner, at 11.00 am.

8. Dr Evans found injuries to the victim's neck consistent with her account of non-fatal strangulation. Dr Evans told the jury that studies had shown that people lose consciousness after the commencement of strangulation in about 6.8 seconds, and within 15 seconds they lose control of their bladder and therefore frequently wet themselves. Even before they lose consciousness, they may lose the ability to move or speak. This means they cannot shout or move or get away from their assailant. Dr Evans told the jury that non-fatal strangulation substantially increases the risk of stroke, brain injury and death.

9. Some of the bruising to your victim was caused by blunt force trauma, such as you kicking her. What was distinctive about some of her injuries was the petechial bruises, small bruises less than 2 mm in diameter. They were found only on your victim's neck, on the right side and the left side. Petechial bruising is caused by pressure causing blood vessels to break and is consistent with strangulation. Your victim also complained of tenderness to the front of her neck and pain on swallowing - also consistent with non-fatal strangulation. Many victims of non-fatal strangulation suffer no injury but your victim did, and this was important supporting evidence for the account that she gave the jury and was consistent with her being held around the neck with force in the way that she described.

10. You refused to accept that you had done this when you gave evidence, notwithstanding the medical evidence and the evidence from your victim. You still refuse to accept that you behaved in this way.

11. This assault was serious, notwithstanding the jury's verdict of common assault and not guilty of grave and criminal assault. It was aggravated by the fact that you assaulted someone who trusted you and you did so not only when you were under the influence of alcohol, but when you knew that she was also vulnerable owing in large measure to her consumption of alcohol.

12. You assaulted your victim in the context of an unpleasant sexual advance, which she had refused. You have in effect blamed her for this assault, minimizing your guilt and suggesting that you threw her out of your flat in the morning, but in a manner wholly inconsistent with her description of the way the jury found you attacked her, and inconsistent with her injuries.

13. You are not a man of good character, although you have no recent or relevant convictions. We have read the victim's personal statement which shows that your victim's already fragile mental health has been affected adversely. She seeks a restraining order against you as she is, in her words, "terrified of you and your unpredictable behaviour". We grant a restraining order, indefinitely, in accordance with the application sought by the Crown at paragraph 29 of its conclusions prohibiting you from contacting her directly or indirectly, from going to an address that you know or believe to be her home, from going to an address you know or believe to be her work address and requiring you - should you come into contact with the victim - to take immediate action to avoid any breach of the order.

14. The Probation Officer who authored the pre-sentence report notes a consistent link between alcohol and offending your in case. Consumption of alcohol has been a contributing factor in this offending, and we make an exclusion order from licensed premises to run from the end of your sentence - excepting 6 th category premises the harbour and the airport if you are there for the purpose of travel and the cinema - and we make that for 12 months from the date of your release.

15. We have read the letters from the members of your family, many of whom are here today. We note that there is plainly another side to you. But you are here to be sentenced for this assault. You put your victim through a trial by jury and you remain unremorseful.

16. The circumstances of this case are so serious that only a custodial sentence can be justified. Offences involving non-fatal strangulation will always result in immediate custody save in an exceptional circumstance. The sentence of the Court is 15 months' imprisonment. You may sit down. Authorities Domestic Abuse (Jersey) Law 2022 Crime (Public Order) (Jersey) Law AG v Rawlinson [2019] JRC 121 AG v Richomme [2013]JRC 223 AG v Williams [2022] JRC137 Page Last Updated: 07 Mar 2025 BAILII: Copyright Policy | Disclaimers | Privacy Policy | Feedback | Donate to BAILII