Offer of No Evidence for Making a Threat to Kill

Our client faced a single charge of Making a Threat to Kill contrary to section 16 of the Offences Against the Person Act 1861. The charge related to a domestic dispute with his wife, who he was in the process of divorcing. He was accused of threatening to kill her while pointing a sharp object in her direction. When our client was arrested a broken screwdriver was found in his pocket.

Allegations of Domestic Violence

Our client agreed that he and his estranged wife had been arguing, but entirely denied threatening her in any way or holding anything sharp while they were arguing. He informed us that the broken screwdriver was in his pocket to allow him to repair his electric bicycle while out and about, and his wife had known it was in his coat as that was where he normally kept it. He said he had not taken it out of his inside coat pocket at any point during the argument.

There was a significant history of police calls relating to domestic disputes from both husband and wife. As a result our client was initially denied bail and remanded into custody with the Court believing further offending was likely.

Our client provided us with a potential bail address at his sister’s house. We made contact with said sister and ensured she was happy to have him stay with her. We then made a submission to the Court that our client would be supported and sufficiently far from his wife that further offending was not likely. We were successful in persuading the Court to grant our client bail despite the long history of domestic incidents and representations made by the prosecution that the police considered our client high risk for domestic violence.

The Outcome

While our client was out on bail the prosecution came to the correct decision that they did not have sufficient evidence to prosecute. To our client’s great relief they offered no evidence in his case.

Lorena Lowen was the solicitor with conduct of this case, assisted by her paralegal Hugo Cheema-Grubb. She instructed Alexandra Monaghan of Crucible Chambers.