AUTHORITIES TO REVIEW DOMESTIC ABUSE CASE

LONDON Britain’s Crown Prosecution Service is considering its options Tuesday in a case in which a man was spared jail for beating his wife after a judge deemed that she was not a vulnerable person.

Domestic abuse campaigners have criticized Judge Richard Mansell for handing Mustafa Bashir, 34, a suspended sentence at Manchester Crown Court last week for assaulting Fakhara Karim.

Mansell said Bashir beat his wife with a cricket bat and forced her to drink bleach.

Bashir admitted assault by beating and using a destructive substance with intent to maim, but Mansell sentenced Bashir to 18 months, suspended for two years.

“I am not convinced that the complainant was particularly vulnerable through personal circumstances,” the judge said in sentencing remarks.

“Sometimes, women who are married in a foreign country and come to this country to live with their husband are effectively trapped in a relationship, particularly where they have few friends ... However, the complainant here was plainly an intelligent woman, who managed to hold down a job as a receptionist, had friends and then went to university.”