The Court of Appeal reduced M.B.’s sentence from 14 to 13 years’ imprisonment after finding him marginally less morally culpable than his co-accused, his wife, in the serious harm inflicted on their nine-year-old daughter.
The court allowed the appeal against sentence severity, quashed the original sentence and resentenced M.B. The 13-year term applies to two counts of causing serious harm and is backdated as it was in the trial court. Three child cruelty counts were taken into consideration; they did not result in separate sentences.
The injuries included severe burns to the child’s hands and feet between 28 June and 2 July 2019, and a serious head injury on 2 July. The judgment says the head injury was inflicted by the co-accused while M.B. was at work. The child required permanent care. The judgment also records evidence of other injuries and that M.B. choked the child until she lost consciousness, conduct covered by one of the child cruelty counts.
M.B. argued that equal sentences failed to account for his absence when the serious injuries were inflicted and the difference in his role. The prosecution submitted that the trial judge was entitled to treat the pair as equally culpable, citing the sustained violence, the child’s vulnerability and the lasting consequences of her injuries.
The appeal court said M.B. was not present when the head injury was sustained, but he spent time with the child during the relevant period and must have been aware of the burns. It also noted that he beat, kicked and choked her, and that both defendants used coconut oil in an effort to conceal bruising before medics arrived. The court concluded he was legally culpable but less morally culpable than his wife.
The trial judge had set a headline sentence of 20 to 22 years before mitigation and imposed concurrent 14-year terms on the serious harm counts. On resentencing, the appeal court set M.B.’s headline sentence at 18 years, saying the case was exceptional and merited a term above the highest band described in earlier guidance. It then reduced the term to 13 years to account for mitigation, including his lack of previous convictions, work history, difficult family circumstances and language difficulties in prison as a non-national.
The court said the sentencing judge had erred by failing to distinguish the defendants’ moral culpability. It otherwise stressed the exceptional gravity of the offending and said the belief that the child was possessed by an evil spirit provided no excuse.