Question to the Attorney General:

To ask the Attorney General, what recent assessment she has made of the effectiveness of the unduly lenient sentence scheme.

The Unduly Lenient Sentence scheme is a vital safeguard in our criminal justice system. It permits the Law Officers to intervene personally in a case where a sentencing judge has fallen into gross error and imposed a sentence which is outside the reasonable range.

Sentencing judges get it right in the vast majority of cases. In those rare cases where they get it wrong, the scheme ensures that justice is served.

I recently argued in person before the Court of Appeal that the dangerous and depraved serial rapists Joseph McCann and Reynhard Sinaga should have received whole life sentences. The Court of Appeal did not impose whole life sentences, but it did increase their minimum terms from 30 to 40 years to properly reflect the truly heinous nature of their offending and protect the public from them.