Unduly Lenient Sentences

(Limited Text - Ministerial Extracts only)

Wednesday 6th December 2017 Westminster Hall

[The Solicitor General (Robert Buckland)]

Thank you, Mr Davies. Diolch yn fawr iawn. It is a pleasure to speak in the debate and I congratulate my right hon. Friend the Member for Hemel Hempstead (Sir Mike Penning) on securing it. He and I worked together in Government on a number of issues relating to victims, and I pay tribute to him for his sterling work during his years of service. He continues that work as a senior Back Bencher, bringing important issues to the attention of the House. I thank all right hon. and hon. Members for taking part in the debate.

I think it was actually my right hon. Friend the Member for Hemel Hempstead who quite rightly said at the beginning of the debate that this is not a party political issue. In that spirit, I welcome some of the comments by the hon. Member for Torfaen (Nick Thomas-Symonds), who was right to remind us that, in the majority of cases, judges apply the law as consistently as they can, but that they are applying it on a case-by-case basis in an independent manner. I think all of us in the House and beyond want to see that when it comes to upholding the rule of law.

My hon. Friend the Member for Henley (John Howell) mentioned sentencing guidelines, which are a very important development in the law. That now means that, regardless of whether someone is sentenced in Truro or Merthyr Tydfil, there should be a consistency of approach; there sometimes was not in the past, quite frankly, and I think sentencing guidelines are helping to change that approach.

On the ambit of that scheme, I should remind hon. Members of its origins. It is only about 30 years of age, and it arose as a result of the famous Ealing vicarage case, in which the late Jill Saward was the victim of a horrendous rape. As a result of the outcry and the campaign that was launched, the law was changed in 1988 and the scheme was developed. It was originally very tightly constrained and applied only to a few very serious indictable-only offences, such as murder.

However, over the years it has developed in a somewhat piecemeal manner, and I readily accept that there are anomalies, inconsistencies and matters that need clarification, because the system, although I think it attracts a high degree of confidence from the public at large, could do with strengthening. I can think of no better way of strengthening it than by giving it more consistency, and therefore accessibility to members of the public who might wish to use it.

The scheme’s introduction was not without controversy. It is unusual, if not exceptional, for a member of the Executive, such as the Attorney General or me, to be able to request the judiciary to reconsider a matter that has been dealt with by a court. Rightly so; that needs to be carefully circumscribed. It is not a right of appeal; it is a right of referral, and I beg to suggest that there is a difference between the two. A referral is, if hon. Members like, like a safety valve that exists in the system to make sure that, where there has been gross error or the sort of sentence that no reasonable court should have passed, there can be intervention from a higher court in order to correct it.

Much has been made—I accept the comments by my hon. Friend the Member for North Devon (Peter Heaton-Jones)—of the threshold applied by the Law Officers in dealing with unduly lenient sentences. I think the threshold should be rigorous and should be high. My concern is that if we departed from the degree of information and evidence that is currently needed, we would end up in a situation in which judges would be routinely second-guessed in a way that I think would encroach on their independence. We have to be very careful about that when dealing with this system.

I take great pride in my work with regard to unduly lenient sentences. It is difficult work, and I am grateful to my hon. Friend the Member for Shipley (Philip Davies) for his work on it. There are cases in which something has quite clearly gone wrong and needs rectifying, and the Court of Appeal assists in that regard.

I find the most difficult cases to be the sort that my hon. Friend the Member for North Devon raised, in which, for example, a bereaved family have suffered the shock and horror of losing a loved one in a road traffic incident. As a result of that tragedy, nothing the court can actually do could restore that family to the position they want to be in. However, I accept his point that there is an inconsistency when offences of careless driving cannot be referred, yet an offence of careless driving where there is evidence of impairment through drink or drugs, for example, can be referred. He made his point very powerfully, and we are listening.

Similarly, my hon. Friend the Member for Shipley made the point about sexual offences committed in breach of trust. That is a very important and concerning anomaly, which again is one of the reasons why I prefaced my remarks by speaking about the need for clarity and consistency. Attractive though it might be to go down the line advocated by the hon. Member for Cumbernauld, Kilsyth and Kirkintilloch East (Stuart C. McDonald), to extend the scheme in England and Wales to all offences in the Crown court and magistrates courts would be a step too far. That is why I am attracted by arguments that create consistency in the Crown court.

Let me look at the figures. It is the case that 12,800 or so indictable-only offences were sentenced in the Crown court last year. That is probably a pretty reasonable benchmark to start looking at the incidences of unduly lenient sentences. It does not include the either-way offences that might come to the Crown court or might be the subject of references, but it gives us an indication of the proportion of cases that are successfully referred.

The hon. Member for Torfaen went through some of the figures that we have. He is right to say that in the last year for which we have full figures, 837 cases were drawn to our attention and 190 of them were taken to the Court of Appeal, with an increase in 141 of the sentences. It seems to me, looking at the figures and doing the best I can, that over the last few years there has been a dramatic expansion in the number of cases brought to our attention and a roughly proportionate increase in the number of cases then successfully referred, so I do not think that my Department can be accused of playing politics with the role that we occupy. We apply the law very carefully, and I think that that important and proportionate rise indicates that we use our powers, as you would expect, Mr Davies, in a way that is consistent with our adherence to the rule of law.

I am glad that awareness of the scheme has been growing, because both the Attorney General and I, supported by our office, work very hard to ensure that that awareness increases. It is consistent with the principle of open and transparent justice that we work to ensure that news about successful references is publicised, particularly in local media. We undertake a round of interviews with local media and use social media to discuss these issues. As a result, the scheme’s profile continues to rise.

Both the Attorney General and I personally present cases in the Court of Appeal. Only a few months ago, I presented the case of Paterson, the breast cancer surgeon who was responsible for the mutilation of victims who were supposed to be in his care. In a week or so, I will go to the Court of Appeal to present another case of an unduly lenient sentence. I think it is important that the Law Officers, whenever they can, personally attend to present cases before that Court. I take particular pride in that role.

I remind myself that I was a sentencer. I sat as a recorder of the Crown court for years before I became Solicitor General. I therefore know the particular challenges that face judges who have to pass sentence, which allows me to understand in a particularly helpful way their position and the delicacy of the balance that needs to be struck.

I take the opportunity to remind everyone that of course anyone—any member of the public—may contact our office about an unduly lenient sentence. No special connection with the case is needed, and it only takes one request for a case to be considered. If there is a victim referral and I decide not to refer the case, a personal letter will be sent to that person, explaining carefully the reasons why. Communication is a very important part of the process, as the shadow Solicitor General said.

Let me move on to deal with reporting restrictions. Obviously, the starting point in all criminal proceedings is the open justice principle. In a very limited number of cases, as we heard, there are reporting restrictions, so in the new year, for a period of six months, we will pilot a trial of the Crown Prosecution Service referring all cases in which there is a restriction on the reporting of the sentence or sentences. That will allow the Attorney General or me to consider personally each case in which there is potentially unduly lenient sentencing, so that no sentence slips through the cracks in the way that my right hon. Friend the Member for Hemel Hempstead outlined.

For those reasons, I commend the unduly lenient sentence system to the House and ask that hon. Members carry on supporting it and promoting its effectiveness.