The Court of Appeal has replaced a 15-year no-contact order imposed on L.McC. after finding that the original order went beyond what the harassment legislation allowed.
L.McC. had pleaded guilty to a large number of offences committed over about two years against his former partner, VK, and members of her family. They included coercive control, harassment, assaults causing harm, threats to kill or cause serious harm, intimidation, robbery, criminal damage and breaches of a safety order.
He was sentenced on April 8, 2025 to 6½ years' imprisonment. The sentencing judge also ordered him under section 10 of the Non-Fatal Offences Against the Person Act 1997 to have no contact with VK or her family for 15 years.
L.McC. confined his appeal to that order. He argued that section 10 permits protective orders for the person who was the victim of harassment, but did not authorise a blanket order covering the victim's family and his own child.
In its July 31, 2026 judgment, the Court of Appeal agreed that the statutory words referred to the victim of the harassment. It therefore found an error in the original order and quashed the sentence on bill 457/24 before carrying out a fresh sentencing exercise.
The court described the offending as serious, prolonged and sinister. It imposed a total sentence of 7½ years on that bill, with the final year suspended to encourage rehabilitation. The suspension is conditional on L.McC. staying away from and not communicating with the victims and their families, including the child until adulthood, except where a future family-law order permits otherwise.
Separately, the court made a new section 10 order preventing him for 15 years from coming within 500 metres of the homes or workplaces of VK and NK, the two harassment victims.
His separate sentence appeal concerning bill 818/24 was dismissed. The sentences continue to run from April 8, 2025.