Sentencing: Appeals
(asked on 23rd June 2015) - View Source
Question to the Attorney General:
To ask the Attorney General, how many and what proportion of appeals against unduly lenient sentences were rejected for being out of time in respect of each category of offence in each of the last three years.
The information requested is contained in the following tables.
2012-2013
Offence category | Number of sentences referred to AG | Successful referral (%) | Out of time (%) | ||
Victim | Prosecutor | Public | |||
Arson | - | 1 | 2 | 0 | 0 |
Burglary | 12 | 20 | 4 | 17 | 0 |
Driving deaths | 3 | 4 | 10 | 14 | 0 |
Drugs | - | 37 | 1 | 14 | 0 |
Firearms | 2 | 3 | - | 40 | 20 |
Homicide | 17 | 13 | 20 | 11 | 13 |
Fraud | 2 | 4 | 7 | 8 | 0 |
Violence | 4 | 20 | 46 | 16 | 2 |
Robbery | 3 | 46 | 4 | 37 | 0 |
Sex | 14 | 46 | 61 | 18 | 1 |
Theft | 1 | - | 2 | 0 | 0 |
Other | 2 | 4 | 25 | 8 | 3 |
Total | 59 | 198 | 180 |
| |
2013-2014
Offence category | Number of sentences referred to AG | Successful referral (%) | Out of time (%) | ||
Victim | Prosecutor | Public | |||
Arson | 1 | 1 | 3 | 0 | 0 |
Burglary | 1 | 12 | 9 | 14 | 5 |
Driving deaths | 2 | 2 | 16 | 10 | 0 |
Drugs | 2 | 29 | 1 | 3 | 0 |
Firearms | - | 3 | 2 | 50 | 0 |
Homicide | 9 | 11 | 48 | 9 | 2 |
Fraud | 1 | 9 | 26 | 11 | 8 |
Violence | 12 | 21 | 45 | 17 | 0 |
Robbery | 4 | 26 | 10 | 13 | 3 |
Sex | 15 | 31 | 76 | 23 | 0 |
Theft | 1 | - | 3 | 0 | 0 |
Other | 1 | 14 | 47 | 5 | 4 |
Total | 49 | 159 | 286 |
| |
2014-2015
Offence category | Number of sentences referred to AG | Successful referral (%) | Out of time (%) | ||
Victim | Prosecutor | Public | |||
Arson | 1 | 2 | 4 | 14 | 0 |
Burglary | 1 | 15 | 12 | 43 | 0 |
Driving deaths | 4 | 2 | 13 | 0 | 0 |
Drugs | - | 20 | 6 | 15 | 0 |
Firearms | - | 11 | 3 | 50 | 0 |
Homicide | 6 | 16 | 47 | 14 | 4 |
Fraud | 3 | 6 | 17 | 10 | 4 |
Violence | 10 | 17 | 51 | 15 | 3 |
Robbery | - | 29 | 16 | 28 | 0 |
Sex | 17 | 51 | 95 | 22 | 1 |
Theft | 1 | - | 1 | 0 | 0 |
Other | 17 | 11 | 113 | 6 | 1 |
Total | 60 | 180 | 378 |
| |
Explanatory notes:
It only requires a single complaint against a sentence to trigger the unduly lenient sentence referral process. Whilst the Attorney General’s Office may receive multiple complaints against a particular sentence, only the source of the first complaint received is recorded.
The police direct their complaints about sentence through the CPS.
A “successful referral” is defined as a referral where the Court of Appeal grants leave to appeal.
“Prosecutor” includes complaints originating from the CPS, SFO, SPA and Local Authorities.