[Remarks made on 7 April by HHJ Mansell QC at Manchester Crown Court (Crown Square), published the Judicial Office on the same date as PR 1743.] MUSTAFA BASHIR REVIEW OF SENTENCING Mustafa Bashir, on 21st March, I sentenced you to concurrent terms of imprisonment of 18 months on two counts of Assault ABH. I suspended those sentences of imprisonment for a period of 2 years on condition that you undergo a supervision requirement and a programme requirement. I have listed your case trial for a review of that sentence pursuant to s155 of the Powers of Criminal Courts (Sentencing) Act 2000, following reports in the media suggesting that you may have misled the court as to your future career prospects. I directed that you should produce evidence to support the claims you made that you had previously been offered a contract to play cricket for Leicestershire and that such offer remained open to you if you kept your liberty. You have failed to produce any evidence to support those claims. All that you have produced today is a handful of emails showing that you may have attended an indoor net session at Grace Road in December 2014, and an outdoor net session in April 2015. There is a further email from you in December 2015 in which you enquire about the outcome of a you had attended at the club. There is no evidence as to what team you were trying out for or what the outcome of such trial was. The at Leicestershire with whom you were in email communication has made a statement to the effect that he does not recall you, which you would think he would, in light of the fact that you were considerably older than the majority of cricketers he was seeking to recruit for the club at that time. Your name does not feature in the list of attendees at the trials held in 2015. Therefore, in summary, there is not a shred of evidence that you were ever chosen to play for Leicestershire CCC, let alone that you had received an offer of a full-time professional contract. It has been suggested by your counsel Mr Sastry, who has appeared today and acts on your instructions, that this is all an unfortunate series of misunderstandings, and that your past career achievements and future career prospects were accidentally over-stated. I reject this submission.
[Remarks made on 7 April by HHJ Mansell QC at Manchester Crown Court (Crown Square), published the Judicial Office on the same date as PR 1743.] MUSTAFA BASHIR REVIEW OF SENTENCING Mustafa Bashir, on 21st March, I sentenced you to concurrent terms of imprisonment of 18 months on two counts of Assault ABH. I suspended those sentences of imprisonment for a period of 2 years on condition that you undergo a supervision requirement and a programme requirement. I have listed your case for a review of that sentence pursuant to s155 of the Powers of Criminal Courts (Sentencing) Act 2000, following reports in the media suggesting that you may have misled the court as to your future career prospects. I directed that you should produce evidence to support the claims you made that you had previously been offered a contract to play cricket for Leicestershire and that such offer remained open to you if you kept your liberty. You have failed to produce any evidence to support those claims. All that you have produced today is a handful of emails showing that you may have attended an indoor net session at Grace Road in December 2014, and an outdoor net session in April 2015. There is a further email from you in December 2015 in which you enquire about the outcome of a trial you had attended at the club. There is no evidence as to what team you were trying out for or what the outcome of such trial was. The at Leicestershire with whom you were in email communication has made a statement to the effect that he does not recall you, which you would think he would, in light of the fact that you were considerably older than the majority of cricketers he was seeking to recruit for the club at that time. Your name does not feature in the list of attendees at the trials held in 2015. Therefore, in summary, there is not a shred of evidence that you were ever chosen to play for Leicestershire CCC, let alone that you had received an offer of a full-time professional contract. It has been suggested by your counsel Mr Sastry, who has appeared today and acts on your instructions, that this is all an unfortunate series of misunderstandings, and that your past career achievements and future career prospects were accidentally over-stated. I reject this submission.
sentencing_remarks.docx