The social media nuisance known as Mizzy, real name Bacari-Bronze O'Garro, has been convicted of two breaches of his criminal behaviour order.
He was cleared of two further alleged breaches.
The unemployed 19-year-old appeared for trial at Stratford Magistrates' Court earlier today, with District Judge Matthew Bone presiding.
As mentioned in our article earlier today, O'Garro was made subject to the order as a result of his conviction on Wednesday, 24th May 2023. The order contained the following prohibitions on O'Garro:
- Not to upload video footage of any person to the web without their explicit consent;
- Not to enter or access private property without the prior consent of the owner, occupier or person in charge;
- Not to enter the Westfield Stratford City shopping centre.
The maximum penalty for breaching a criminal behaviour order is 6 months' imprisonment and/or an unlimited fine on summary conviction; or 5 years' imprisonment and/or an unlimited fine on conviction on indictment.
As O'Garro has been convicted of two breaches, the court has a sentence of 12 months' imprisonment available. If it considers 12 months insufficient, it could send the matter to the Crown Court for sentencing.
He was accused of breaching the order twice on 24th May, once on 26th May and once on 7th July 2023.
O'Garro's solicitor, Paul Lennon, began the day by making an application to have the trial adjourned, on the basis that the key defence witness was unable to attend.
Mr Lennon explained to the court that O'Garro and the witness had been arrested on 16th October in relation to other matters and were now subject to bail conditions not to contact each other.
DJ Bone quite rightly rejected the application on the basis that there had been more than enough time to inform the court of the situation prior to today's trial. The Judge is no doubt mindful that today is the third listing of the trial, so the parties have had ample opportunity to get their ducks in a row.
The allegations of 24th May were said to have occurred a matter of moments after O'Garro left court having been made subject to the order.
According to the Crown, he rode his bicycle through Westfield Stratford City later in the day.
He was filming as he did so and addressed the camera, saying "I am banned from this place, I can't go in here. UK laws are weak". Several members of the public were shown in the footage, none of whom gave their consent for it to be uploaded.
At 8 pm O'Garro appeared on Talk TV's Piers Morgan Uncensored programme. During his interview with the host, shown in the video below, O'Garro described UK laws as "weak".
Later that evening, at around 10.15 pm, the footage from earlier in the day was uploaded to O'Garro's Twitter account.
Just over half an hour later, at 10.50 pm, a second video was uploaded to the Twitter account. It was filmed by O'Garro as he rode a bicycle around the aisles of the Sainsbury's supermarket in Dalston Cross Shopping Centre.
O'Garro narrowly missed a woman shopping and was challenged by a man, neither of whom gave consent for the footage to be uploaded. He also rode the bicycle into the stock room, which was a private area to which to public had no implied right of access.
On 26th May a video was uploaded to Twitter showing O'Garro riding a bicycle inside a Jobcentre. He was heard asking staff where he could get a job, adding "oh, I can't ride in here?"
On 7th July further videos were uploaded to a Snapchat account associated with O'Garro. The first of these showed him in an altercation with a student; the second showed him in a scuffle with a man with dwarfism.
Giving evidence at today's trial, O'Garro denied the first two videos were uploaded to Twitter by him. He said they had been uploaded without his knowledge by his friend, who unfortunately failed to appear as a witness.
He did, however, concede that he had attended Westfield Stratford City, but said he mistakenly believed the order only applied to inside the building - despite having said in the video "I am banned from this place".
In relation to the Sainsbury's video, O'Garro said it had been filmed and circulated prior to the order being made. He said it had been uploaded to Twitter by his friend without his knowledge or consent.
Similarly he said the Jobcentre video had been uploaded to Twitter without his knowledge or consent.
In relation to the Snapchat videos, O'Garro claimed they were staged with the consent of the other participants.
Having considered the evidence, DJ Bone flatly rejected O'Garro's account of the first breach on 24th May, saying: "I have to say I did not accept the evidence of the defendant - it lacked all credibility.
"Within hours of the criminal behaviour order he posed (in Westfield Stratford City) stating the video would be shared and it was."
O'Garro was also convicted in relation to the Snapchat breach of 7th July.
The Judge noted the following in relation to the two breaches: "I found it to be an intentional, immediate and deliberate challenge to the criminal behaviour order."
O'Garro was granted conditional bail until his sentencing at Thames Magistrates' Court on Tuesday, 21st November 2023.
The Judge warned O'Garro that all sentencing options, including immediate custody, were open to the court.
Addressing the father-of-one, he said: "You need to understand the seriousness of your situation now.
"You need to understand that you deliberately flouted this court order within hours of it being made."
These are flagrant breaches of the order. O'Garro has displayed utter contempt and arrogance towards the court.
I fully expect him to receive the significant custodial sentence that he deserves.
Update (27/10/23): I've had a few enquiries about sentencing options available to the court, so thought I'd go through the relevant sentencing guideline.
Normally the court will adhere quite closely to the sentencing guideline, but it is not strictly bound by it and can impose any sentence the law allows (in this case, as discussed previously, up to 12 months' custody for these two separate offences; or send to the Crown Court for a sentence of up to 5 years' custody). If the court does deviate from the guidelines, it needs to give its reasons why.
If I was sentencing these offences I would place them as a category B2 (medium culpability, greater harm) as a minimum. This gives a starting point of 12 weeks' custody and a range between a medium level community order and 1 years' custody.
I think these offences fall short of the "very serious or persistent breach" needed for higher culpability, but the sentencing bench may well take a different view on that given O'Garro's defiance has been broadcast to many thousands of his "fans". In my opinion the offences fall under the description of greater harm, as they "demonstrate a continuing risk of serious criminal or anti-social behaviour".
Having arrived at the starting point, the court then needs to factor in any aggravating or mitigating factors. The very significant aggravating factor here is that O'Garro was convicted of a similar offence and made subject to the order only a few hours before the first breach. DJ Bone has already indicated that he considers this an "immediate, intentional and deliberate" challenge to the order. He hasn't used the words "flagrant defiance", but that is clearly his view. If I was sentencing, that aggravation would be sufficient enough to get the sentence up to 12 months' custody. There are no obvious mitigating factors, but O'Garro might be given some credit for personal mitigation due to his circumstances - being a father to a young child etc. In my view any mitigation would be slight and it might bring the sentence down to around 10 months' custody. The bench would then need to consider whether or not the period of custody could be suspended, but given O'Garro's previous antics I think they would opt for immediate custody. O'Garro was convicted at trial, so is not entitled to any discount on his sentence for a guilty plea.
So if I was sentencing this, based on the information available, I would be minded to impose an immediate custodial sentence of somewhere between 10 and 12 months. Certainly in these circumstances I find it almost inconceivable that O'Garro would not receive an immediate custodial sentence. This is definitely a case where justice must be seen to be done.
I conclude with my usual caveat that the sentencing bench will obviously have far more information available to guide its sentencing decision.
Update (21/11/23): O'Garro has now been sentenced.
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