Sentencing Guidelines (Pre-sentence Reports) Bill

Debate between Lord Thomas of Gresford and Baroness Hollins

Committee stage
Monday 19th May 2025 Grand Committee

[Baroness Hollins (CB)]

I was talking about unintended consequences and the risks of a lack of clarity. I was going to end simply by urging the Minister to reflect deeply on the evidence. We just cannot afford to legislate in ways that risk compounding harm and perpetuating disadvantage.

[Lord Thomas of Gresford (LD)]

My Lords, I realise that it is now 50 years since I was appointed as an assistant recorder; I was involved in sentencing for a very long time until I finally gave up. I later became a recorder, then a deputy High Court judge, and I dealt with many cases. The principle you have to apply, I think, is that the more you know, the better the sentence. For that reason, I fully support everything that has already been said by my noble friends, in particular that this Bill is completely misconceived.

In sitting here, I was trying to think of an illustration. It comes from a case that I did many years ago in the Midlands. It involved a family from south Asia. The wife of the son of the family was in an arranged marriage. She had come over from India or Pakistan—I cannot remember which—and married the son, who was a taxi driver. She could not speak a word of English. She had come over on a tourist visa, I think; in any case, there was something wrong with the visa. She became extremely fat because she ate with the family, then ate again with her husband when he had finished with his taxi business at night. So she stopped eating, and she slowly dwindled away until she was in a desperate condition. However, she was unwilling to go to the doctor. So the son took her to the doctor, but he went in himself and described her symptoms as if he was suffering from them. He got a prescription for the symptoms by pretending that he was the person who was suffering. The poor girl eventually could not walk, was incontinent and so on. She died. The son and both his parents were then charged with manslaughter. The trial took place, with the three of them charged with manslaughter, and they were all convicted. They then came up before the judge for sentencing.