“I appear at magistrates court this week, charged with ABH.”
What happened to the proposed restorative justice/conditional caution disposal?
For the offence to been seen as Cat 1, as you have realised there must be both “Greater Harm” and “Higher Culpability” present.
From your brief description I would tend to agree with your assessment. However, it is always difficult to second guess what a court, armed with all the details, would conclude. I always warn against this on here. In any case, there’s little you can do about it. If the Magistrates do believe it is Cat 1 they will not sentence you but will send you to the Crown Court for sentencing (the “starting point” is 18 months custody and the range is one to three years. Magistrates have powers only up to six months). You need to be aware (if you are not already) that even at Cat 2 the “Starting Point” is 26 weeks custody with a range of a community order up to 51 weeks. The court (whether Magistrates’ or Crown) will almost certainly order a pre-sentence report and the probation service will interview you and report their findings to the court to assist with sentencing.