Appeal against imprisonment dismissed by Royal Court

Tuesday 18 May 2021

A man convicted for indecent assault has failed in an appeal against his prison sentence - but only after his Defence Advocate pointed out that a 67-year-old man had recently walked free from Guernsey's Courts with a fine for a similar assault.

Following a trial in March, Filipe Branco, 38, was found guilty of indecent assault at La Tourgand in the Lower Pollet last summer.

Having been involved in an altercation in the early hours of the morning, Branco approached a woman who was helping someone else to ask her for assistance. After she asked him to wait, Branco grabbed the victim between her legs from behind.

In sentencing last month, Judge Gary Perry said he was satisfied, after hearing evidence during trial, that Branco had acted deliberately and misogynistically, as he sent him to Les Nicolles Prison for four months. 

Pictured: Branco was sentenced to four months in prison by the Magistrate's Court. 

Unhappy at the sentence, Branco appealed against the decision. His Advocate, Sam Steel, argued that the sentence was manifestly excessive given Branco's personal mitigation. He also contested that it had been aggravated by the Court's finding that it was a misogynistic assault. 

"There was simply not the evidence to justify such a finding," said Advocate Steel, as he read out personal references about Branco to the Royal Court. 

He acknowledged that Branco's assault was "a serious offence which seems got have had a lasting impact on [the victim]".

However, in a nod to another sentence handed down in the same Court last month, he pointed out that a Vicar who had grabbed a young man inappropriately in the public toilets at Grandes Rocques had walked away with a £1,000 fine.

Advocate Steel said that imprisonment has been a "salutary" experience for Branco and argued that he does not pose an ongoing risk to women. 

"We do accept that the custody threshold [for Branco] had been crossed, but we submit that the sentence should have been suspended," he concluded.

Pictured: Advocate Steel compared Branco's sentence of four months in prison to the £1,000 fine that was handed out recently to the disgraced Father John Moore, who reached around a cubicle to grab an 18-year-old's groin. 

The Law Officers of the Crown made no comment on the appeal, leaving Royal Court Judge Catherine Fooks and eight Jurats to deliberate. 

"We do not agree [that the charge of misogyny] aggravated the sentence," Judge Fooks concluded. "Indeed, there must be a deterrent element in sentencing."

The identity of the victim was also a significant aggravating factor. The Royal Court dismissed Branco's appeal, meaning he will have to serve the remainder of his prison sentence before facing an uncertain future in Guernsey upon his release.