James v AG (Royal Court : Appeal (Criminal) : Bailhache, W) [2025] JRC 324 (5 December 2025)

JUDGMENT THE COMMISSIONER: 1. The Applicant has requested an extension of time within which to appeal his conviction and sentence before the Magistrate, and an extension of time within which to apply for that leave. We have considered his able and courteous oral submissions as well as the CCTV and body worn footage evidence to which we refer later as well as his written material and that supplied by the Crown. At the end of the hearing we announced that the applications were dismissed with reasons to follow. This judgment contains those reasons. The facts 2. On 31 December 2024, the Applicant flew to Jersey with his partner. He had booked an evening at Bohemia restaurant, and they were staying at the Radisson Blu Hotel at the Waterfront in St Helier. He and his partner were and are resident in the United Kingdom. They had come to Jersey purely to celebrate New Year's Eve and joined some friends who live in the island at the Bohemia restaurant. It appears that there was an amount of drinking before, during and after dinner. In his first interview with the police, the Applicant described himself as "blind drunk" and said he could not really remember what had taken place after midnight. He however went on to say that he recalled arriving back at the Radisson by taxi with his partner. He went into the bar to get a glass of water and then went outside to smoke a cigarette. He recalled some hotel staff coming out to talk to him, although he did not know why. Then the police arrived.

3. The Applicant's partner, the complainant, told the police shortly after they had arrived at the Radisson in answer to her call that there came a point at Bohemia where she felt she had had too much to drink and wanted to return to the hotel. The Applicant, according to her, did not want to go back to the hotel and when they got there, he refused to give her the key to their room. The hotel staff would not allow her access because she was not on the booking. She then called the police. Although slightly incoherent in the telephone conversation when she called the police, she did say that she had been grabbed by the throat by her partner and no doubt it was this that caused the police to attend with some urgency. The Applicant was arrested on suspicion of having committed a grave and criminal assault, and the police then collected further evidence in the form of CCTV footage from the Radisson Hotel. There was also some body worn footage from the officers who had attended. This contained interchanges with the Applicant outside the Radisson as well as an amalgam of the Radisson's internal CCTV footage. The Applicant criticises the body worn footage of the internal CCTV because it was incomplete and did not convey the context of the events which took place. We are informed it was this footage which was played to the Assistant Magistrate.

4. The CCTV footage inside the hotel (which is video footage only without sound) showed the complainant coming into the hotel lobby through the main doors at approximately 1.25 a.m. on 1 January and sitting on a sofa. Shortly afterwards the Applicant came in and approached her quite rapidly. As he did so, she stood up. The Applicant was clearly agitated, wagging his finger at her and the footage shows him to push her sharply in the neck area so that she fell backwards onto the sofa. He is seen to stagger slightly. He then left her. There is no doubt that the complainant had a mark around the base of the throat which would be consistent with the firm push which we have described.

5. The Applicant and his partner had been due to fly back to the United Kingdom on the afternoon flight of 1 January. The complainant did fly back then, but the Applicant had been held in police custody while other enquires were made. He was interviewed towards the back end of the afternoon, and therefore missed his return flight. He was subsequently interviewed by the police in the late afternoon of 1 January, when he had no explanation for the CCTV footage of him pushing the complainant on to the sofa. He said that he had no recollection of doing anything to her but he was obviously shocked by the video at the time - he said he was "gobsmacked" and that he could identify no logical reason why he would not have let her go back to their room. He would never mean to do the complainant any harm. He usually had a good memory but there were big gaps in his memory for the early hours of 1 January, which he put down to the quantity and mix of alcohol which he had taken. He did concede to the investigating officers that while he had not understood why he was held all day in custody, and had thought it was unreasonable, on looking at the CCTV footage he said that "I get it now".

6. The Applicant was charged with a common assault by Centenier Curtis and presented in the Magistrate's Court the following day. On that occasion, he entered a guilty plea on his first appearance and was fined £1,500. The Applicant had had the opportunity of legal advice from Advocate Sarah Dale at Police Headquarters, and was represented by the duty advocate, Advocate Allana Binnie, for his appearance in the Magistrate's Court.

7. The first Notice of Appeal was filed by the Applicant on 11 February 2025. It was unclear from that Notice of Appeal whether he was appealing against conviction or sentence. The Notice of Appeal suggested that the grounds were unlawful arrest, false imprisonment, excessive use of force and a direct discrimination against protected characteristics, namely sex and age discrimination. It was said that his arrest was believed to be in violation of his right to liberty and security under Article 5 of the European Convention on Human Rights as set out in Part 1 of Schedule 1 to the Human Rights Act 1998.

8. The Applicant has subsequently requested disclosure of multiple documents and CCTV footage. His second Notice of Appeal, signed on 23 April 2025, did indicate that he wished to appeal against conviction and sentence. He recognised that he had failed to give a Notice of Appeal within the prescribed period of seven days after the date on which the decision of the Magistrate's Court was given, and sought an extension of time. Such reasons as were given in that Notice of Appeal were that he had suffered amnesia between shortly after 11 p.m. on 31 December and around 7 a.m. on 1 January, and in addition had had insufficient time to review the partial disclosure which he had received on Wednesday 8 January. He asserted that the police had withheld from him what his former partner had told them, and failed to investigate any of her testimony which he claimed was demonstrably false. The police had taken no account of the complainant's provocation of him. He asserted that the duty advocate was provided with incomplete disclosure and unchecked falsehoods. His arrest and detention were unlawful, and the duty advocate had not advised him properly, all of which amounted to a breach of his rights to a fair trial under Article 6 of the European Convention.

9. Since April there has been a series of further disclosures. The Applicant still contends that there are a number of further matters to be disclosed - a complete body worn footage file from activation to deactivation, with audio, unredacted save where strictly necessary for third party privacy; a short statement confirming the device identification, the officer, start / end time stamps, and any edits or omissions, and that the supplied files are accurate derivatives of the original master recording; a redaction index identifying each redaction by time code, the legal / policy ground relied upon and the authorising person; and confirmation whether the portion in which the Complainant provides her statement has been withheld, and if so why. That is said to be crucial to understanding how the allegation was framed and whether police questioning shaped the narrative subsequently adopted by the prosecution.

10. I indicated in pre-hearing directions that this further disclosure would not be ordered but that the Applicant could put again, if he wished, a request for it. Application for an extension of time 11. The approach which is taken by the Royal Court to applications to extend time for an appeal against a decision of the Magistrate is no different from the approach taken by the Court of Appeal to similar applications to extend time for appeal from a decision of the Royal Court. The Court has regard to: (i) The extent of the delay; (ii) Any explanation for it; (iii) The prospects of success; and (iv) The risk of prejudice.

12. Furthermore, in criminal cases the Court has regard to the principle that the rules which govern the time within which appeals are to be brought are rules which are intended to be observed, and there is a clear public interest in criminal charges being decided and disposed of as quickly as possible.

13. In the present case, the extent of the delay is quite considerable - the first Notice of Appeal did not identify what was being appealed, and indeed accordingly could hardly be said to be a Notice of Appeal against conviction. The second Notice of Appeal was filed nearly five months after the conviction was entered. The explanation for the delay appears to be based upon a lack of disclosure. We do not, however, refuse the application for an extension of time solely on the grounds of the delay in proceeding with it - especially because the delays since April are not entirely down to the Applicant and are certainly not held against him - but we do consider that the explanation for the delay between January and April is not adequate. However, the application for an extension of time is primarily rejected because in our judgment the prospects of success are absolutely negligible. The right of appeal 14. Article 33 of the Criminal Procedure (Jersey) Law 2018 ("the Procedure Law") provides for a right of appeal in these terms: "(1) A defendant convicted by the Magistrate's Court may appeal to the Royal Court in the circumstances set out in paragraph (2). (2) If the defendant - (a) pleaded guilty or admitted the facts, he or she may appeal against the sentence or order; (b) pleaded not guilty, he or she may appeal against the conviction, sentence or order; or (c) pleaded not guilty and was sent to the Royal Court for sentencing under Article 27, he or she may appeal the conviction." 15. At first blush, and on an ordinary reading, an applicant who has pleaded guilty or admitted the facts has no right of appeal against the conviction. At that point, one would say that the prospects of success in this case were zero.

16. However, the Assistant Judicial Greffier rightly drew the attention of the Applicant to the case of Bouchard v AG [2021] JRC 236, where this Court did quash a conviction notwithstanding the fact that the appellant had pleaded guilty before the Magistrate. That case was based on a construction of Article 17 of the Magistrate's Court (Miscellaneous Provisions) (Jersey) Law 1949 , but as Article 33 of the Procedure Law is in substantially similar terms, no point arises out of that. The facts of that case were unusual. In essence, the position was that the guilty plea to a charge of driving whilst under the influence of drink or drugs had been entered because the appellant had been provided with an analyst's report which indicated that a conviction would be inevitable - however the analyst had made a mistake, and a further check made later on established without any doubt that there was in fact no trace of the drug in the appellant's blood which was in the analyst's first finding, and which led the appellant to plead guilty.

17. The Court indicated that there were "very limited circumstances" in which an appellant would be permitted to appeal against his conviction despite his guilty plea, but, in giving its reasons for the decision, referred inter alia to the case of Harding v AG [2010] JRC 167 where an appellant was permitted to appeal against her conviction notwithstanding her guilty plea in circumstances where she had not understood the evidence against her owing to her unfitness to plead. In that case, the appellant had been unfit to plead when the plea was taken and for that reason the Court was prepared to look behind the guilty plea. The Court in that case had referred to some earlier decisions where it had not been prepared to look behind the plea, but also to the case of Bish v Attorney General 1992/086 18 th May 1992, where, on different facts, the Court had concluded: "The conclusion which we draw from these cases is that the Court will look at any case to see if it has jurisdiction where either the accused did not appreciate the nature of the offence or there were any other grounds entitling the Court to do so." 18. Any appeal against conviction where there has been a guilty plea in the lower court necessarily involves the appellate court considering whether the appellant should be permitted to change his plea. The question of permitting a change of plea on an appeal against conviction

also arose in Vladimirov v AG [2024] JCA 161 . In that case, the applicant for an extension of time asserted that his conviction, based upon the guilty plea, should be quashed on the grounds that he did not understand the implications of his plea because he was not provided with the assistance of an interpreter so that he could understand the language used by his lawyer and by the Royal Court, and also that he was wrongly advised that he was likely to be convicted and put under improper pressure to plead guilty. The Court of Appeal was not persuaded however, saying this: "16. The Court is not however persuaded that there is any sufficient evidence that the provision of interpretation was necessary to do justice in this case. Nor is the Court persuaded that the decision of the applicant as to whether to plead guilty was even arguably affected by a lack of translation." 19. As to the improper pressure issue, the Court of Appeal said this: "20. It emerged with great clarity at the hearing that the applicant's real complaint was the quality of the advice he was given that his account would not be believed and the fact that he did not have access to the underlying case materials. ....

22. However, in our view, the advice that the applicant received was well within the range of appropriate professional responses by a competent advocate. Most advocates confronted with the evidence in this case would have been inclined to advise the applicant that he was not likely to be believed. ....

29. We do not consider that there is any reliable evidence, even on his own account, that the applicant was subject to improper pressure." 20. Addressing the point that there would have to be an application to vacate the plea under Article 79 of the Procedure Law before sentence was passed, the Court of Appeal noted that even if the application had been made at that time, the power to vacate the plea would have been exercised "sparingly" particularly since the pleas were entered with legal advice, relying upon AG v F [2020] JRC 039A at paragraph 12. The applicant would have had to persuade the Royal Court that his pleas were equivocal. As the Court of Appeal found in the case of Vladimirov , there was no evidence, even at the date of the appeal, that they were. The Court added this: "34. The circumstances in which a defendant may be permitted to go behind a plea of guilty on an appeal against conviction are even more limited. In R v Asiedu [2015] EWCA Crim 714 [2015] 2 Cr App R8, Hughes LJ at para 32 emphasised that the trial process is not a "tactical game". A defendant who pleads guilty is making a formal admission in open court that he is guilty of the offence. Once he has admitted such facts by an unambiguous and deliberately intended plea of guilty, there cannot then be an appeal against his conviction, for the simple reason that there is nothing unsafe about a conviction based on the defendant's own voluntary confession in open court. A defendant will not normally be permitted on appeal to say that he has changed his mind and now wishes to deny what he has previously admitted.

35. We do not consider that it is arguable that the Applicant was not able to make an informed and free choice about his pleas. He was given adequate legal advice and assistance which he understood and acted on. His initial offer of partial pleas demonstrated that he was able to make decisions about his plea based on the strength of the evidence as well as his own account. It is simply not arguable that the pleas that were ultimately offered did not represent a true acknowledgement of his guilty. In those circumstances we do not consider that there is any basis on which an appeal against conviction would succeed. For these reasons the application for an extension of time is refused. There is no good reason for the delay in making the application for leave to appeal and the appeal has no prospect of success. No possible injustice is caused to the Applicant by this decision." Discussion 21. In the present case, notwithstanding everything that has been said by the Applicant on his own behalf, we do not consider that there are any grounds for concluding that the guilty plea was tainted by mistake, duress, fraud or should be regarded as a nullity. We agree with the comments of MacRae DB in Bouchard where he said that " in our view the Court must be extremely careful when identifying other circumstances when grounds may exist entitling the Court to entertain an appeal against conviction against a background of a guilty plea".

22. In his first affidavit the Applicant says that Advocate Binnie "told me I must plead guilty because of the CCTV and because there was a history of domestic violence at Thames Valley Police against my former partner". He said that he protested both points, but he was advised against pleading not guilty in the strongest terms based upon these points. He said that Advocate Binnie told him she would recommend a "Botley" [sic] to the Assistant Magistrate. This was a reference to an order which was within the power of the Assistant Magistrate to make namely that the Applicant be bound over to leave the island. Advocate Binnie, who was able to make an affidavit because the Applicant had waived privilege, confirmed that she had a number of statements made available to her before she advised the Applicant, as well as a photograph of the complainant's neck, the two interviews of the Applicant, some body worn police footage of the incident from inside the hotel and a record of previous convictions. She indicated in her affidavit that when she met the Applicant, he did not raise any issue of provocation, accepted that he had very little memory of the evening due to his consumption of alcohol, did not raise any possibility of his drinks being spiked by the complainant or any history of that happening on a previous occasion, did not raise issues with the lawfulness of his arrest,

and instructed that his priority was to be released from custody so he could travel home as soon as possible. She deposed that her advice was to plead guilty because the evidence was against him, and she agreed that she told him that she would ask the Assistant Magistrate to bind him over. Her advice was not based upon any alleged misconduct by the Applicant recorded by Thames Valley police and indeed when the case was presented before the Assistant Magistrate, the prosecution expressly disavowed any suggestion that there were previous convictions, saying these were only allegations.

23. In response, the Applicant swore a further affidavit making these core points in summary: (i) The CCTV evidence showed that his complainant's claims against him were entirely false, and key clips proving provocation were withheld from both the Court and his duty advocate. (ii) Critical evidence was withheld - the police redacted the provocation clip and omitted any interview observations. No toxicology was conducted despite a seven hour memory gap and his unusual symptoms. (iii) Advocate Binnie had relied solely on the disclosure she had received and a redacted synopsis of the case, and had she reviewed the full evidence, the falsity of the prosecution case would have been obvious. (iv) The combination of withheld evidence, misrepresentation by the police and flawed legal advice led directly to an unsafe guilty plea. (v) The complainant has a documented history of manipulative and criminal conduct including false allegations, covert drug administration and deception of authorities.

24. We have no doubt at all that the Court should not allow the Applicant to change his plea, which we do not regard as being in any sense unsafe. The Applicant was charged with a common assault. An assault in Jersey is an unlawful striking of another person with a hostile or reckless intent. Provocation is not a defence to charge of assault, although of course it is capable of being taken into account when, following conviction, the Court considers sentence. There is no possibility here on the CCTV evidence of justifying a defence of self-defence.

25. When a defendant enters a guilty plea to a charge of assault, it is usual for him to be aware of what he did and why. This case is somewhat different from the norm because the Applicant contends that he has no memory of the relevant period - at the time he put the lack of memory down to the quantity and mixing of alcoholic drinks which he had taken over the evening, although now he contends that the drinks he took were at some point tampered with by the complainant. But at the time he entered the plea, he had had the opportunity of seeing the CCTV footage which recorded his conduct.

26. There is no evidence of any tampering of the Applicant's drinks. It is pure surmise on the part of the Applicant. The facts which might have persuaded him to advance that defence were known to him at the time, but he did not contemplate advancing it. He did not tell his then advocate nor the police about them. She clearly could not therefore advise him on their relevance. The police cannot be blamed for not carrying out a toxicology test when the Applicant had admitted he was drunk and pleaded guilty.

27. As against that, this Court has the advantage of the CCTV footage of the circumstances of the assault. It is as clear as daylight that that footage demonstrates a deliberate striking of the complainant by the Applicant with a hostile intent. No other conclusion could rationally be drawn from it. It is telling that when this CCTV clip was played to the Applicant by the police in his first interview, he immediately sought a suspension of the interview while he took advice from the duty advocate at police headquarters; and that when the police returned to the clip at the second interview, the Applicant had no explanation for it but described himself as "gobsmacked" because the footage was so clear in demonstrating what he had done. He was shocked by his own conduct.

28. In these circumstances, allegations that he was wrongly arrested, unlawfully imprisoned and that disclosure was withheld from him and his advocate are simply beside the point. Any advocate giving him advice on seeing that CCTV footage would advise him that the probability of conviction was high. We consider Advocate Binnie's advice in that respect to be sound.

29. In our judgment there is nothing about the plea to suggest that it was anything other than an unequivocal admission of guilt. We note from his second affidavit that the Applicant does not contest Advocate Binnie's statement that he was anxious to enter a guilty plea in order that he might be able to return forthwith to the United Kingdom. In our view, that may well have been influential on the Applicant's thinking at the time, but it does not entitle him to change his mind at a later stage. It particularly does not do so in the light of the CCTV footage which demonstrates his guilt. That the CCTV footage reveals a less serious incident than that described by the complainant is also beside the point. The footage - which captures the alleged assault and formed the basis of the prosecution's description of the offence to the Assistant Magistrate - is clear.

30. In his oral submissions, the Applicant expanded his complaint against Advocate Binnie to the point of saying that she offered him a binding over order as an inducement to plead guilty. We do not accept that that was the case. It is not how it was described in the affidavits and seems to us to be intrinsically unlikely - both that an advocate would offer something clearly beyond her power and that a sensible defendant, as the Applicant undoubtedly is, even one without prior experience of being in court, would understand a statement that the Assistant Magistrate would be asked to impose a particular order as a statement that amounted to an offer of that order. Furthermore, as Advocate Ridley pointed out from the transcript of the proceedings below, when this suggestion was made to the Assistant Magistrate, he immediately said it would send the wrong message, and he was not minded to deal with the case in that way. If ever there were a moment for the Applicant to say that he had only entered his plea on the basis that a binding over order would be the outcome, that was it. But he said nothing.

31. The Applicant by his other criticisms seems to us to raise the sort of tactical games to which Hughes LJ referred in R v Asiedu [2015] EWCA Crim 714 . Nonetheless, because these points have been raised, we will deal with them, albeit briefly.

32. The first complaint is that the arrest was unlawful. Having reviewed the body worn footage, it is clear that when arrested the Applicant was informed that the reason for the arrest was an allegation of assault. He was therefore given the information as required by Article 26 of the Police Procedures and Criminal Evidence (Jersey) Law 2003 .

33. At the time of making the arrest, the police officers had reasonable grounds for such an action. They were aware: (i) that a complaint of assault had been made by the complainant. (ii) that there was a mark on the complainant's throat which was consistent with her claim of assault; (iii) that the surrounding circumstances did not make such a claim intrinsically unlikely - because the complainant and the Applicant were partners, had come to Jersey for New Year's Eve, were both intoxicated, and the Applicant was refusing to permit his partner access to the room which they were occupying in the hotel.

34. The Applicant next complains that his detention at police headquarters was unlawful. At that time, the police had a copy of the CCTV which showed the assault. There was obviously sufficient evidence to hold the Applicant in custody. The Applicant was not detained for any length of time in excess of that provided by Code C of the Police Procedures and Criminal Evidence (Codes of Practice) (Jersey) Order 2004 . The custody officer completed the necessary formalities. No justification of the contention that the detention was unlawful has been advanced, but even if it had been a proper contention, it does not bear upon the safety of the conviction in the light of the other evidence.

35. In the circumstances, we are satisfied that Article 5 of the European Convention, introduced into the law of Jersey by the Human Rights (Jersey) Law 2000 , has been complied with.

36. The complaints about disclosure appear to us also to be unconvincing. The reality is that the duty advocate was provided with all the material evidence on which the Crown relied. This included the CCTV footage and the statements of the material witnesses. There was undoubtedly on that evidence a sufficient basis to charge. On that charge being made, it was a question for the Applicant to decide on his plea. If he wished to contend that he needed further disclosure before he could enter a plea, it was open to him to make that case to the Magistrate. In that event, the Magistrate might have allowed him some further time before entering the plea, and the further disclosure could have been ordered. The risks to the Applicant in taking that course would be that the Magistrate would not give him any further time and he would not be regarded as having entered the plea at the first available opportunity, thereby affecting the possible discount on his sentence if subsequently convicted. In fact he did enter a plea there and then - and, as a result, disclosure of all the other material was certainly not urgent and arguably not even relevant. He had after all accepted in a formal public admission that he was guilty of the offence.

37. As we understand it, the Applicant is contemplating, or possibly is taking, various actions against the police and / or against the advocates who advised him. That is a matter for him. In our view, it is neither requisite nor desirable for us to enter the detail of any such cases or complaints which the Applicant has. None of them are relevant to the issues with which we are concerned, namely whether time should be extended for an appeal against conviction, and indeed whether any such appeal would stand a realistic prospect of success.

38. This is archetypally a case where the statute envisages that no appeal can be brought against conviction. That is for the obvious reason that it is in the public interest that criminal process is completed as speedily as possible, without injustice to the Applicant and other persons interested in the prosecution. There is nothing other than surmise which the Applicant has to offer by way of explanation for his lack of memory of the relevant events and indeed, as against that surmise, there is the acceptance of his drinking a mixture of alcohol, including cocktails, during the hours before his arrest, which might of itself be just as capable of explaining his conduct as any other imagined behaviour on the part of the complainant, for which there is no evidence.

39. In our judgment there is nothing to suggest that the guilty plea was wrongly entered, or was entered under mistake, duress or a misapprehension of the nature of the case. The Applicant gave his name, his date of birth and temporary address to the Assistant Magistrate and entered the plea of guilty himself once the charge had been read. There is no basis on which it can be said he did not understand what he was doing. We consider the decision to enter it was made because there was sound advice from his counsel that the CCTV evidence made the likelihood of acquittal low, and the absence of any explanation he had for what took place in the light of the obviously adverse CCTV evidence. The decision to enter it may also well have been influenced by the Applicant's desire to return to England and the present application made because he now wishes he had challenged the prosecution case at the time. Those are not circumstances in which the court will permit a guilty plea to be withdrawn.

40. In those circumstances, we would have no jurisdiction to grant an appeal because Article 33 of the Procedure Law says so. Accordingly, we refuse the application for an extension of time within which to appeal the conviction as well as any application for leave to appeal it.

41. We turn now to the application for an extension of time to allow the Applicant to appeal against sentence. When considering the likely merits of the appeal, we have to have regard to the basis on which such appeals might be allowed. The Applicant must show that the sentence imposed was wrong in principle or manifestly excessive.

42. When passing sentence, the learned Assistant Magistrate said this: " Mr James would you stand up please. Mr James you have pleaded guilty to one count of assault. The Court and yourself [sic] had an opportunity to see the CCTV. I'm sure you are the first to accept the fact that it is unfortunate and would undoubtedly have been quite an unpleasant event for the Complainant. However, all that said this Court has certain guidelines in regard to dealing with assaults and it categorizes them by way of seriousness in three different categories. In my view this falls within the lowest of the categories. Namely, that's an assault with a low degree of force involving little or no injury. Ordinarily I would deal with that by way of financial penalty. I recognise the fact that you've pleaded guilty at the first opportunity, that this was only a single shove, albeit there was some finger pointing and some name calling. There was little or no damage and a low level of force. All of that is in your favour. You also indicated that you're remorseful and apologetic for your actions. On the other side of the equation, there are aggravating factors that the Court has to take into account as well. They include the fact that you were clearly intoxicated at the time. The push was aimed a vulnerable part of the body namely towards the neck and it was in a domestic context that is to say it was in

a relational context which is not approved by the Court in any way shape or form. Having said all of that and having regard to all that I have said the decision of the Court is to issue a fine of £1,500. Because it is a financial penalty, I have to set a custodial default which means that if the fine is not paid then there's a period of time that you would spend in prison. In this case that would be four weeks. Fines are payable forthwith unless there are particular circumstances that require additional time...." 43. We note that very little has actually been said by the Applicant either on the papers or in oral address as to why the Assistant Magistrate was wrong in the approach which he took to the question of sentence. The Applicant's address to us has been almost exclusively focussed on the requested appeal against conviction. Nonetheless, we have considered the sentence imposed.

44. It is clear that the Applicant has a number of complaints to make about the Complainant. None of these are relevant to what we have to decide. For whatever reason, the relationship between them went wrong that evening and has apparently not improved since. Again, that is beside the point. The Courts of this island are rightly supportive of the police and political initiatives to see violence against women and girls reduced and on any view the conduct of this Applicant in seemingly hectoring the Complainant by finger wagging and then pushing her forcefully in the area of the throat, not to mention refusing her access to the room which they were sharing when she had, by 1am indicated that she wanted to return to bed on account of having drunk too much, was, as he recognised the following day, well short of what is acceptable.

45. We consider the sentence imposed severe for what was, as the Assistant Magistrate said, an offence committed with no serious amount of force and causing no, or no substantial nor severe, injury. However, in our view, it is impossible to say that the sentence imposed was wrong in principle or was manifestly excessive. It follows that there is no likelihood that the appeal might succeed and that time to appeal should therefore not be extended.

46. The applications to extend time to appeal against conviction and sentence were therefore dismissed for these reasons. Authorities Criminal Procedure (Jersey) Law 2018. Bouchard v AG [2021] JRC 236. Magistrate's Court (Miscellaneous Provisions) (Jersey) Law 1949. Harding v AG [2010] JRC 167 . Bish v Attorney General 1992/086 Vladimirov v AG [2024] JCA 161 . AG v F [2020] JRC 039A. R v Asiedu [2015] EWCA Crim 714 Police Procedures and Criminal Evidence (Jersey) Law 2003. Police Procedures and Criminal Evidence (Codes of Practice) (Jersey) Order 2004. Human Rights (Jersey) Law 2000 Page Last Updated: 16 Jan 2026 BAILII: Copyright Policy | Disclaimers | Privacy Policy | Feedback | Donate to BAILII