202403291 B4 - [2025] EWCA Crim 1135

Lord Justice Holroyde:

The appellant was convicted of two offences of cruelty to a person under 16 years, contrary to s1(1) of the Children and Young Persons Act 1933. On 7 October 2024 she was sentenced to concurrent terms of 4 years 6 months’ imprisonment for each offence. Her applications for leave to appeal against her convictions and sentence were referred to the full court by the Registrar. At the conclusion of the hearing on 26 June 2025 we refused the application for leave to appeal against conviction but granted leave to appeal against sentence, quashed the sentences imposed below and substituted for them concurrent terms of 3 years’ imprisonment. We indicated that we would give our reasons in writing at a later date. This we now do.

The victim of the offences was the appellant’s daughter, aged 2 years 9 months at the material time, whom we shall call “C”. The court has directed, pursuant to s45 of the Youth Justice and Criminal Evidence Act 1999, that whilst C is under the age of 18, no matter may be included in any publication if it is likely to lead members of the public to identify her as a person concerned in these criminal proceedings. In order to give effect to that direction, the appellant’s name has been anonymised for listing purposes by using the randomly-chosen letters EAC. We direct that nothing may be included in any report of this appeal which names or may otherwise lead to the identification of the appellant, who must be referred to only as EAC. We shall refer to relevant hospitals by letters of the alphabet, in order to avoid a risk that using their correct names may lead to the identification of C.