R v Sheikh and others [2026] UKSC 28

Ambreen Sheikh suffered catastrophic brain injury from glimepiride poisoning after earlier caustic burns inflicted by her in-laws. The Supreme Court restored their convictions under section 5 DVCVA 2004, holding that section 5(1)(d)(iii) focuses on foreseeable circumstances, not the precise unlawful act.

Facts

Ambreen Fatima Sheikh, a 30-year-old Pakistani national, entered into an arranged marriage with Asgar Sheikh in May 2014 and moved to the family home at 15 Clara Street, Huddersfield, in November 2014. On 1 August 2015 she was admitted to hospital deeply unconscious, having sustained catastrophic brain injury from which she has never recovered. Medical evidence indicated the injury was probably caused by hypoglycaemia induced by ingestion of glimepiride, an anti-diabetic drug prescribed to her mother-in-law, Shabnam Sheikh. On examination, Ambreen was also found to have a very severe 10 by 4 inch sacral lesion, caused days earlier by the deliberate application of a caustic substance, together with damage to her right ear and evidence of serious neglect. No medical assistance had been sought for these injuries. The police recovered soiled items concealed in a wheelie bin, and clean trousers had been placed on Ambreen before the ambulance arrived.

The four respondents (father, mother, daughter and elder son) were convicted at Leeds Crown Court before Lambert J and a jury of causing or allowing a vulnerable adult to suffer serious physical harm contrary to section 5 of the Domestic Violence, Crime and Victims Act 2004, together with offences of perverting the course of justice. The Court of Appeal quashed the section 5 convictions. The Director of Public Prosecutions appealed to the Supreme Court.

Issues

The central issue concerned the proper construction of section 5(1)(d)(iii) DVCVA 2004, which requires that the unlawful act causing death or serious physical harm ‘occurred in circumstances of the kind that D foresaw or ought to have foreseen’. Specifically:

• Whether the antecedent infliction of the sacral injury by a caustic substance could satisfy the foresight requirement when the unlawful act causing brain injury was the administration of glimepiride, described by the Court of Appeal as ‘utterly different’.
• Whether the focus of the subsection is on the foreseeability of the act, or the foreseeability of the circumstances in which the act occurred.

Arguments

Appellant (DPP)

The appellant advanced a two-part submission. First, that ‘circumstances of the kind’ should be construed broadly to cover all circumstances in the context of which the act occurred, rather than the act itself. Secondly, that once actual or constructive awareness of a significant risk under section 5(1)(d)(i) is established, only in wholly exceptional circumstances would the further requirement in section 5(1)(d)(iii) not be met where the act occurred in a domestic setting.

Respondents

The respondents argued that this broad construction would render section 5(1)(d)(iii) otiose, effectively creating a presumption that satisfaction of paragraphs (i) and (ii) automatically satisfies paragraph (iii). They submitted that the kind of circumstances in which the further serious harm occurred must independently have been foreseeable, and that the administration of glimepiride represented a wholly different set of circumstances from the caustic assault.

Judgment

Lord Lloyd-Jones (with whom Lord Reed, Lord Burrows, Lady Rose and Lady Simler agreed) allowed the appeal and reinstated the convictions.

Rejection of the second limb of the appellant’s argument

The Court found considerable force in the respondents’ objection to the appellant’s second submission. Section 5(1)(d)(iii) is intended to provide additional protection over and above paragraphs (i) and (ii). A construction that any unlawful act occurring in a domestic setting after awareness of a general risk would satisfy the provision would render it otiose. The Court approved the reasoning of the Court of Appeal on this point and the passage in Smith, Hogan and Ormerod’s Criminal Law (17th ed) warning against interpreting ‘circumstances’ too loosely.

Endorsement of Lambert J’s approach

The Court held Lambert J’s construction was correct. Three points were emphasised: (i) the focus is on the circumstances, not the act — Parliament chose not to require foresight of the act or kind of act; (ii) the words ‘of the kind’ mean the circumstances need not be identical, following R v Uzma Khan; and (iii) offences of this nature typically occur in private, and requiring precise correspondence between the antecedent risk-creating conduct and the eventual unlawful act would unduly limit the protective scope of the offence.

Whilst the nature of the act and the mechanism of infliction may properly be taken into account as part of the circumstances, a difference in mechanism is not necessarily determinative. The Court of Appeal had erred by treating the fact that the mechanism of injury was ‘utterly different’ as dispositive, thereby taking an unduly narrow view of ‘circumstances of the kind’ and substituting its own view for that of the jury.

Relevant ‘circumstances’ at trial

The prosecution had relied on multiple circumstances: general hostility toward Ambreen; the antecedent sacral injury inflicted with a caustic agent within the household; the traumatic damage to her right ear possibly caused by the same agent; and evidence of serious neglect, emaciation and dehydration. Lambert J correctly concluded that a jury could properly find these were foreseen or foreseeable circumstances.

The summing up

The Court of Appeal’s criticisms of the summing up were unfounded. Applying Brutus v Cozens, the question whether ordinary statutory words applied to the facts was for the jury as fact-finder, not a matter of statutory interpretation for the judge. Lambert J was correct to direct the jury in the terms of the statute, and attempts to paraphrase or provide hypothetical examples would have been unhelpful.

Further criticisms

The subsidiary criticisms made by the Court of Appeal — regarding evidential difficulties, section 24 of the Offences against the Person Act 1861, and the rarity of glimepiride’s use as a weapon — were also rejected. In particular, the rarity of malicious administration of glimepiride could not bear on foresight under section 5(1)(d)(iii), as the foresight required is not of the act but of the kind of circumstances in which it occurred.

Reformulated question

The Court adopted a reformulated question proposed by the appellant: whether the fact that an act causing serious physical harm was ‘utterly different’ from antecedent violence is necessarily fatal to the foresight requirement in section 5(1)(d)(iii). The answer was ‘no’.

Implications

The judgment clarifies the proper approach to section 5(1)(d)(iii) DVCVA 2004 in ways which are of considerable importance for prosecutions of household members for causing or allowing death or serious physical harm to children and vulnerable adults:

• The statutory focus is on foreseeability of the circumstances in which the unlawful act occurred, not on foreseeability of the act itself or its precise mechanism.
• The circumstances need not be identical to those constituting the antecedent risk; they need only be ‘of the kind’ that was foreseen or foreseeable.
• A difference in the mechanism of infliction of harm — even where ‘utterly different’ — is not necessarily fatal to satisfaction of the provision. Whether it is fatal is fact-specific and a matter for the jury.
• Section 5(1)(d)(iii) is not otiose: it will protect defendants where the risk they foresaw was confined to specific kinds of circumstances (for example, when a perpetrator is intoxicated, or an infant is distressed) and the act occurred in different kinds of circumstances.
• Trial judges should direct juries in the terms of the statute rather than attempting to paraphrase ‘circumstances of the kind’ or provide hypothetical examples; whether the words apply is a question of fact.

The decision preserves the practical utility of section 5 in addressing the mischief identified by the Law Commission — the difficulty of securing convictions where two or more household members may have inflicted or allowed serious harm to a vulnerable person, and the tendency of such offences to occur in private. It ensures the provision is not read so narrowly as to defeat its protective purpose, whilst maintaining the additional safeguard that the circumstances of the harm must have been foreseeable to the non-perpetrating defendant. The judgment will be of significance to prosecutors, defence practitioners and trial judges in future prosecutions concerning domestic violence against children and vulnerable adults.

Verdict: The Supreme Court allowed the DPP’s appeal, set aside the order of the Court of Appeal quashing the section 5 convictions, and reinstated the respondents’ convictions on counts 1 to 3 and 5. The Court held that Lambert J was correct to dismiss the submissions of no case to answer and did not misdirect the jury. The reformulated certified question was answered in the negative: an ‘utterly different’ antecedent act is not necessarily fatal to the foresight requirement in section 5(1)(d)(iii) DVCVA 2004.

Source: R v Sheikh and others [2026] UKSC 28