[2025] EWCA Crim 1173

The applicant is aged 34. She was, before this offending, of good character. On 23 July 2023, on the second day of her trial in the Crown Court at St Albans, she pleaded guilty to an offence of cruelty to a person under 16, contrary to section 1(1) of the Children and Young Persons Act 1933. The judge said that he gave the applicant credit of between 15 and 20 per cent (although in fact he gave 20 per cent) because of the presence of other matters on the indictment which were not, in the event, pursued.

A trial took place on unrelated matters in respect of which the applicant was acquitted. The judge said that the evidence in that trial showed that the applicant indulged in fantasies about sexual child abuse. Messages were exchanged with the applicant's co-defendant and others in relation to sexual child abuse. The judge stopped the trial because he could not be sure that the messages were not just fantasies, although he returned to that point when he came to assess dangerousness.

On 5 September 2024, the applicant was sentenced to an extended determinate sentence, pursuant to section 279 of the Sentencing Act 2020, comprising a custodial term of six years and an extended licence period of three years.

No victim surcharge was ordered because the earliest date of the offending was May 2011.

The victim of the applicant's offending has the benefit of lifelong anonymity, pursuant to the provisions of the Sexual Offences (Amendment) Act 1992. In order to protect the victim's identity, it has been necessary to anonymise the name of the applicant and to give only a short summary of the facts, to avoid the risk of inadvertent identification of the victim. To that extent, the applicant has an undeserved windfall of anonymity.