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Yet Another Tweeting Barrister Profile picture
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17 Mar, 4 tweets, 1 min read
Police, Crime, Sentencing and Courts Bill, clause 100: the first of the "sentencing" clauses from the title. This is a relatively quick and easy one, which some will say is fair and some will say is unnecessary tinkering. It could well be both.
At present, s312 of the Sentencing Code imposes a minimum 6 months (4 for a youth) for threatening with a bladed article unless there are "particular" circumstances that make it unjust to do so.

Clause 100 substitutes "exceptional" for "particular".

That's it.
The same amendment is made to s313 (7 year minimum for 3rd class A drug dealing offence), to s314 (minimum 3 years for 3rd dwelling burglary) and to s315 (minimum 6 months (4 for youth) for second bladed article or offensive weapon offence).
Basically this means that escaping these minimum sentences will require "exceptional" rather than merely "particular" circumstances.

For this, I have had to scrawl an amendment in my lovely neat copy of the Sentencing Act...

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Yet Another Tweeting Barrister Profile picture
17 Mar
I've been wondering about this. I'm not sure how I feel about @DJWarburton, a politician of whom I had never heard until today but with whose politics I largely disagree, pointing to my threads on the Bill in his defence of voting for it.
As a gut reaction, I suppose I dislike it. But as the great Carl Sagan once said, I try not to think with my gut.

I have been doing these posts to inform. I was moved by the rank inaccuracies, whether honest or not, in posts about the Bill.
I think that if people are going to discuss legislation, they should actually know what it says and what it means.

If somebody whose political views match mine attacks somebody with whose views I disagree but does so on a wrong factual basis, then I disagree with that attack.
Read 6 tweets
Yet Another Tweeting Barrister Profile picture
17 Mar
Clause 101 of the Police, Crime, Sentencing and Courts Bill is probably one of the least controversial in the whole document.

It sets a whole life sentence as the starting point for the premeditated murder of a child.
By way of background: anybody convicted of murder gets life.

Life sentences have what is known as a tariff but is more correctly called the minimum term. You serve the minimum term (all of it) before you are even eligible for release.
The Parole Board might still decide not to release you after the end of your tariff and even once you are out, you remain subject to being recalled to prison at any point for the rest of your life.

A whole life tariff means that you will never be released.
Read 6 tweets
Yet Another Tweeting Barrister Profile picture
17 Mar
I'm going to tackle Clause 61 of the Police, Crime, Sentencing and Courts Bill. This is the clause that deals with travellers.

I am going to begin with this: I do not pretend to know enough about the issues facing travelling communities (I include Gypsies, Roma and all others)
to be able to say anything very much about how much this will impact on them. My experience outside of Court is that each year a group of travellers has moved onto the village green where I live. Some get irate, I don't.
So I am going to restrict myself to the provisions of the Bill and make no comment on the reasonableness or otherwise of them. I simply don't know enough about their lifestyle or the extent to which it might interfere with others in some places.
Read 16 tweets
Yet Another Tweeting Barrister Profile picture
16 Mar
Another thread on the Police, Crime, Sentencing and Courts Bill.

I am going to skip the section on public order and encampments. Much has already been written about it, ranging from the insightful to the simply wrong. I may come back to it.

Let's look at driving instead.
Clauses 64 and 65 increase the maximum sentences for causing death or serious injury through driving.

Clause 64 first: it's couched in terms of an amendment to a Schedule of another Act, as these things often are, but what it amounts to is this:
The maximum penalty for causing death by dangerous driving increases from 14 years' imprisonment to life. The maximum for causing death by careless driving when under the influence of drink of drugs also increases from 14 years to life.
Read 16 tweets
Yet Another Tweeting Barrister Profile picture
15 Mar
This post by @Keir_Starmer has made me very sad and, the more I think about it, increasingly angry. I consider it to be thoroughly dishonest. I would like to think that it is ignorance but no matter how much I try, I cannot suspend my disbelief enough.

Let me explain why.
Before I do, let me clarify that yes, I know that there are all sorts of problems with getting sexual offences to court and that a tiny minority end up in convictions. Those are problems but they are not the particular problems I am addressing here. This is about sentencing.
Let's start with the suggestion that "attacking a statue = 10 years in prison". No. It doesn't. Criminal damage carries a maximum sentence of 10 years in prison.

There is no offence of attacking a statue and nobody is talking about making one. This is simple rubbish.
Read 18 tweets
Yet Another Tweeting Barrister Profile picture
15 Mar
Right, time to look at one of the controversial ones: 10 years for damaging a statue. Well, sort of.

Clause 46 of the Police, Crime, Sentencing and Courts Bill has been widely reported as imposing a 10 year sentence for damaging a statue. I'm going to take this in stages.
First, remember always that the maximum sentence for any given offence is very rarely imposed and even more rarely is it imposed for anything other than a really serious offence of its kind.

So also please stop this nonsense about people getting 10 years for being annoying...
So what does Clause 46 do? Well, one thing it doesn't do is mention the maximum sentence. Instead, it addresses "mode of trial".

In very simple terms, we have Magistrates' Courts for minor matters and the Crown Court (judge and jury) for serious matters.
Read 18 tweets

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