is there any precedent for imprisoning people for this?
Over recent years I have seen a number of cases come very close, but always as
cuccir and others have suggested, it has been as a result of a prolonged pattern of sustained offending against RoRA, or included a serious fraud or other matter.
As suggested we'd have to go looking for evidence of anyone having been imprisoned, I don't recall hearing anything in recent years, though in the recesses of my memory I think I recall something from the 1980s at either St Albans or Watford, but it’s so long ago I may be muddling it with something else.
We've seen a number of offenders end up with community service orders in more recent times. In one RoRA case about a year ago Magistrates warned the defendant that they were considering a custodial sentence and the report from the prosecutor afterwards read as follows:
After respectful representations from me on behalf of the TOC, Mr XXXXXXX was sentenced to a 12 month Community Order with a 12 month Supervision and a 12 month Drug Rehab requirement on each offence, but to run concurrently....this was a 6 month increase of supervision order over that proposed by Probation Report. In addition, he was ordered to pay our full costs application of £675 plus full fare compensation of £20.90. These are to be subject to an attachment to benefits order and consolidation. The Court left the defendant under no illusions that custody could have been an option.
This is one of the more onerous penalties imposed in recent years that I have experience of, but although the offences were all RoRA matters, the effect of other offending and drug user issues can be seen to have contributed to the Court’s decision.
In the OPs case, I have no doubt that he has no reason whatsoever to worry about the likelihood of custody and with recent documentation from his medical practitioner being made available to the Court confirming his conditions as described, a sympathetic response is much more likely.