R v Adam Lukaszewicz

A co-accused, Bogdan Erhan, pleaded guilty at an earlier time in the proceedings to an offence of unlawfully wounding another person at about the same time and in the same place as the appellant's offence. He was sentenced on 7 January to 10 months' imprisonment.

The offence for which the appellant was sentenced occurred on the evening of 24 July 2025 in The Boulevard Crawley, which is an area where homeless people tend to congregate. The victim, who was a chef at the time, took some left over food at the end of his shift to his friend who was then homeless. He was talking with his friend when the appellant and co-accused arrived and began shouting at another man. The victim told them not to do so whereupon the appellant turned his attention to him and assaulted him. There was some dispute in the evidence as to the precise nature of the assault. The victim described a blow to the head from the appellant. A witness present described the appellant pushing the victim into a wall. The appellant said in a basis of plea that he had no memory of the incident but was prepared to accept that he pushed the victim causing him to fall into a wall thereby recklessly rather than intentionally causing the injuries.

Whatever the nature of the assault the victim sustained two lacerations to the side of his head which required stitches and fractures to his left jaw, cheekbone and eye socket, with broken bones on either side of his nose. The victim was on blood thinning medication at the time having suffered a heart attack not long before the assault. This caused him to bleed copiously from his wounds. At hospital he underwent a CT scan. After a period of observation he had his wounds cleaned and a tetanus booster injection before being discharged.

In an impact statement the victim described suffering considerable stress and anxiety following the assault causing him to change his route to work so as to avoid the area where it occurred. He was unable to leave the house for 2 weeks following the assault and suffered financial hardship as he was not paid when he was not working. He suffered significant pain particularly in his left jaw. He could not eat or sleep properly, nor could he shave for a long time. He further suffered sharp pain in his left eye for a few days after the attack, a total blurriness in that same eye for about 3 months thereafter. He could not read anything by use of that eye. At the time of the statement (6 months after the incident) the victim still felt numbness to his jaw and could not chew on the left side. Whilst awaiting the appellant's trial he lost countless hours of sleep, worrying about what would happen. He crossed the street where he would not before to avoid any group of drunk young people.

The appellant (now aged 34 years) had two previous convictions for three offences. In 2020 he received a suspended sentence order for an offence of affray and one of possession of an imitation firearm in a public place. In 2021, the operational period of that sentence was extended by 3 months when the appellant failed to comply with it.

In sentencing the appellant the Recorder said that he attacked a "good Samaritan", who had just finished work and brought some food to his homeless friend. That and the other facts of the unprovoked assault meant that it crossed the custody threshold and demanded a custodial sentence. The Recorder accepted that the mechanism of the injuries the appellant caused was unclear. She observed that the push to the chest causing contact with the wall could not explain both the injury to the back of the head as well as the extensive facial injuries.

The Recorder placed the offence within category 2C of the relevant sentencing guideline. It fell within culpability C because of the lack of a weapon but at the top of the bracket because the Recorder could not accept that the gash to the back of the victim's head could have been caused by a simple push, or that all of his injuries front and back could have resulted from a simple push. In her view, the offence fell within harm category 2 because the injuries "taken into account both the continuing physical and psychological impacts" were grave. On the gravity of the injury the Recorder had been referred in mitigation to the case of R v Hayes and Mack [2025] EWCA Crim 750 . The Recorder said that she had regard to that authority but found the facts to be distinguishable from those in the instant case. The starting point was, therefore, she said, one of 12 months' imprisonment with a range of high-level community order to 2 years' imprisonment.

The Recorder found aggravating factors in the appellant's previous convictions and his intoxication to the extent that he had no memory of the events. In mitigation, she accepted that he had a difficult childhood having lost his parents at an early age and that at the time of his previous convictions he was suffering from psychosis. That however was not the position when the appellant assaulted the victim in the instant case. There were no relevant mental health difficulties at the time of sentence. The Recorder noted that the appellant had expressed remorse and apologised to his victim. She found that this was a case which clearly passed the custody threshold. She reached a notional sentence after trial of 22 months' imprisonment. By the application of 10 per cent credit for the appellant's guilty plea she came to the 20 months' imprisonment imposed.

The appellant contends that this sentence is manifestly excessive for two reasons. First, Ms Levett submits that the Recorder fell into error in finding that the victim sustained "grave" injury. This she submits should have been categorised "as really serious harm" resulting in a categorisation of 3 rather than 2 harm within the guideline. Second, that the Recorder applied too high an uplift when balancing the aggravating and mitigation factors. This resulted in her almost doubling the starting point for a category 3C offence which was unjustified on the facts of this case.

As to the first ground, Ms Levett points out that there was a query as to whether the appellant was responsible for all of the injuries sustained by the victim. She agrees with the Recorder that all of the injuries could not have been caused either by a single blow to the back of the head or by pushing the victim into the wall. In the absence of evidence in her written grounds Ms Levett submitted that the Recorder should have sentenced on the basis that the laceration to the head was the most likely injury caused by the appellant. In oral submissions today she realistically accepted that the Recorder was entitled to infer from all the facts that the appellant had responsibility for all of the injuries.

Ms Levett submits that even if the Recorder was correct to sentence on the basis that the appellant caused all of the injuries to the victim, they were not such that they could properly be described as grave. In this regard she relies on the decision of this Court in R v Hayes and Mack , where Singh LJ, giving the judgment of the Court, found that a fractured eye socket, open wound to the right eyebrow, bruising and a hematoma to the right eye amounted to really serious rather than grave harm and fell within category 3 of the guideline.

Ms Levett accepts that by section 63 B of the Sentencing Act 2020 , the Court must, when considering the seriousness of any offence, consider the harm caused, intended to be caused and that which might foreseeably have been caused. She submits that the injuries in this case were not intended and were more serious than could have been reasonably foreseen from a push to the chest with two hands.

Discussion and conclusion

We turn first to how the injuries were caused. The appellant could not assist in this regard as he has no memory of the incident. It is right that the victim described being hit to the back of the head and another witness who was first assaulted by the co-accused, spoke of seeing the appellant push the victim into the wall. Those two descriptions are not mutually exclusive. It is entirely possible and indeed as the Recorder observed likely that the wounds to the head were caused in a different way from those to the face. That said it is clear from the evidence that the injuries were caused to the victim in a very short timeframe and after he had asked the appellant and co-accused to stop shouting at the other man. We consider that the Recorder was entitled to come to the view that in this short incident the appellant was responsible for both sets of injuries. In any event, we do not accept the contention that the appellant should be sentenced on the basis that he had only caused the wounds to the back of the head. There was no reason to proceed on that basis.

We turn to the categorisation of harm. There is no doubt that the victim sustained really serious physical harm and also significant psychological harm by reason of this assault. We agree with the Recorder that the case of Hayes is of limited assistance. It is not a guideline case nor are the injuries analogous to those suffered in the instant case.

We have given the matter anxious consideration and have concluded that, serious although the injuries in the instant case were, they do not quite amount to grave injury as is normally understood by this guideline factor. That said, the combination of physical and psychological harm is particularly serious and, in our view, falls at the very top end of category 3 harm.

We agree with the Recorder that the appellant's culpability fell at the top of the category C bracket. He was to be sentenced on the basis that no weapon was used. That said, this was a completely unprovoked assault on the victim who was, as the Recorder described, acting as a good Samaritan and taking food to one homeless man and endeavouring to prevent another being shouted at.

This Court has said many times that the sentencing guidelines are not tramlines. A flexible approach is required. There will be offences where the combination of culpability and harm take an offence outside of the otherwise appropriate bracket. We consider this to be such a case. The nature of the injuries combined with the unprovoked nature of the assault on an individual who was helping others, in our view, take this offence outside and above the guideline for a category 3C offence. It is of particular note that these were head injuries which may foreseeably have caused much greater harm than in fact ensued.

There were then the aggravating factors. Intoxication was a considerable aggravating factor with the appellant said to be under the influence of alcohol and/or drugs. We agree with the Recorder that the appellant's previous convictions for public disorder aggravated the offence. He may have had some mental health problems at that time but this does not render the convictions irrelevant. There was in truth little by way of mitigation.

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