The Court of Appeal has dismissed Romas Bitaris’s appeal against the five-year sentence imposed for assault causing harm, finding no error in principle by the sentencing judge.
Bitaris pleaded guilty to one count of assault causing harm under section 3 of the Non-Fatal Offences Against the Person Act 1997. A charge of producing a knife and metal bar during a dispute was taken into consideration. He was sentenced on 22 November 2024. At the time of the offending, five years was the maximum sentence for the section 3 offence.
The assault happened on 16 February 2020 at Bitaris’s house. The judgment says the victim, who was known to him, returned to retrieve a phone after spending the previous day and a half drinking with Bitaris. A fight broke out, and Bitaris stabbed the victim in the stomach with a large hunting knife and struck his head with a metal bar. The victim suffered disembowelment and a skull fracture, underwent emergency surgery and later required several operations. Two young children were present.
Bitaris had initially faced two charges of assault causing serious harm. His offer to plead guilty to the lesser section 3 offence was initially rejected by the prosecution, then accepted on the trial date after a jury had been sworn and the victim consulted. The sentencing judge gave no further reduction for the plea, citing the probation report’s account that Bitaris denied wrongdoing and maintained that he had acted in self-defence. The judge also referred to his previous convictions, including knife and assault offences.
On appeal, Bitaris argued that the sentencing judge had wrongly treated a discounted sentence as unavailable and had given insufficient weight to his plea and other mitigation. The prosecution submitted that section 29(2) of the Criminal Justice Act 1999 allowed the maximum sentence where exceptional circumstances justified it, even after a guilty plea.
The Court of Appeal said the assault was exceptionally serious, citing the severe injuries, the presence of the children, Bitaris’s previous convictions, the lack of remorse recorded in the sentencing material and the probation service’s assessment of a high risk of reoffending. It held that the sentencing remarks made clear why the maximum term was warranted, although the judge had not expressly labelled the circumstances “exceptional”.
The court dismissed the appeal. The five-year sentence therefore stands.