Sentence in “landmark case” referred to Attorney-General by Rupert Russell ruled unduly lenient

In December 2019 Rupert Russell advised the Attorney-General to refer a sentence passed on a serial domestic abuser to the Court of Appeal as unduly lenient. On 25 February 2020, the Court quashed the original community order handed down at Taunton Crown Court and replaced it with a three-year custodial term. This is the first case of Controlling and Coercive Behaviour to be referred to the Court of Appeal since the government extended the unduly lenient sentence scheme to include the offence in September 2019.

The case was reported in the Guardian.