Birmingham man jailed for six weeks after breaching anti-social behaviour injunction

A Birmingham man who breached an anti-social behaviour injunction on a number of occasions has been sentenced to six weeks in custody.

The terms of the injunction granted on 5 June 2015 by His Honour Judge Worster against Robert Bishton were that:

• he should not use or threaten to use violence, harass or intimidate any person;
• he should not enter a defined exclusion zone.

Birmingham City Council subsequently applied to commit Bishton to prison for breach of the injunction.

In Birmingham City Council v Bishton [2015] EW Misc B23 (CC) Ms Recorder Rowlands found that there were four allegations of breach which were all either admitted or proved beyond reasonable doubt.

The incidents were:

• On two separate occasions the defendant had been found within the exclusion zone.
• On the second occasion, on 23 June, officers had attended to arrest him. The defendant was taken to custody and when he was in custody it was found that he had a knife on him. He made, on that occasion, a threat to a police inspector, saying: “I’ll slash your f*cking throat, you c*nt.”
• The last incident, the fourth allegation, was accepted by the defendant, after he was confronted with CCTV.
• When he was arrested, having been cuffed and taken to the back of the police van, he said to a police constable: “You wait till I get these cuffs off”.

Birmingham City Council argued that this last comment was a threatening phrase. Bishton denied that he had said those words, adding that he was not happy that he had been arrested and been grabbed by a police constable in the course of the arrest.

Ms Recorder Rowlands said she bore in mind that there was no independent evidence and that this was effectively one word against another.

“However, I do bear I mind that this is one incident out of a series of incidents where Mr. Bishton has shown contempt for the injunction made against him on 5th of June, where he has shown threatening behaviour to other police officers and where he was in fact armed with a knife,” she added.

Having heard evidence from both parties, the Recorder said she was satisfied beyond reasonable doubt the evidence of the police constable was correct.

Sentencing the defendant for the breaches, Ms Recorder Rowlands told him: “When this matter first came before the court the police gave evidence that you were a young man who was on the verge of taking a wrong turn in life and that there was an opportunity then for you to get away from this gang culture and turn your life around.

“Within a very short period of time of the injunction being made against you, you breached it four times. You breached it twice by being in breach of the exclusion zone. On the first occasion you say you did not understand it, but on the second occasion you say you simply did not care. It is not adequate to say that you don't care about court orders. Court orders are made for a reason, they are to be obeyed and if you do not obey them you will be punished.”

She added: “When you were arrested for the second of those breaches your conduct was reprehensible. You made threats to the officers who were arresting you and you made a threat to the officer who was not even involved in the arrest but happened to be standing by, which is a very serious incident, for which there can be no penalty other than a custodial sentence. You chose to have a knife on you and you chose to make threats about slashing Inspector Downes' throat and that must be taken extremely seriously.”