By
Dana Gloger
THE jailed Israeli owner of two London kosher bakeries and a kosher restaurant who secretly gave his pregnant wife abortion pills, lost his appeal against his sentence this week.
Gil Magira, 36, from Hendon, north west London was sentenced to three years and nine months in March this year after pleading guilty to administering a noxious substance with intent to procure a miscarriage.
The owner of the Bonjour bakeries in Hendon and Stanmore and the Lemonade restaurant in Hendon secretly poisoned the breakfast of his wife, Anat Abraham on two consecutive days in February last year, after she refused to terminate the pregnancy.
At the Royal Courts of Justice yesterday, his barristers Jonathan Goldberg QC and Gary Grant argued that the original sentence, passed by recorder Oliver Sells at London’s Old Bailey, was “manifestly excessive”.
Mr Goldberg said that Mr Sells had not given Magira sufficient credit for pleading guilty at the first reasonable opportunity and explained that the prosecution was only brought after his client’s own confession.
But the judges dismissed the appeal. Mr Justice Goldring said: “It is inconceivable that he could not have known the risk to the foetus but also to the mother.
“Given the seriousness of this offence, a prison sentence was quite inevitable. We are not able to say the sentence was wrong in principle or manifestly excessive.”
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