Students: Higher Education
(asked on )
Question to the Ministry of Justice:
To ask the Secretary of State for Justice, what (a) sentences and (b) other outcomes were received by people aged (i) under 18 and (ii) 18 and over who were prosecuted for the offence of threatening with an article with a blade or point or an offensive weapon in each year since that offence's inception; and if he will make a statement.
The Legal Aid, Sentencing and Punishment of Offenders Act 2012 introduced new offences of threatening with a knife or offensive weapon in a public place or school. These offences carry a mandatory minimum sentence of a four month Detention and Training Order for 16-17 year olds, and six months custody for adults, unless there are exceptional circumstances.
The latest available figures on the outcomes by age group for offences involving threatening with a knife or offensive weapon are available in table 9 of the Knife Possession Sentencing Quarterly Brief October – December 2013 which was published on 13th March 2014. The quarterly bulletin is available from the Ministry of Justice website at:
https://www.gov.uk/government/collections/knife-possession-sentencing-quarterly
The figures provided have been drawn from an extract of the Police National Computer (PNC) data held by the Department. The PNC holds details of all convictions and cautions given for recordable offences committed in England and Wales. In addition, as with any large scale recording system the PNC is subject to possible errors with data entry and processing. We do not currently have data on prosecutions for threatening with a bladed article or offensive weapon as these offences only came into force from 03 December 2012.
This Government is clear that people who are convicted of threatening with a knife should always go to prison. Sentencing in individual cases remains a matter for the courts and they may depart from the mandatory minimum custodial sentence if there are particular circumstances which would make it unjust to do so. Parliament has provided the courts with tough sentencing options and we continue to keep this under close scrutiny.