Sentencing: Foreign Nationals

(asked on 4th July 2025) - View Source

Question to the Ministry of Justice:

To ask the Secretary of State for Justice, how many and what proportion of (a) foreign and (b) dual national offenders were (i) tried and (ii) sentenced in absentia in the last 12 months.


Answered by
Nicholas Dakin Portrait
Nicholas Dakin
Government Whip, Lord Commissioner of HM Treasury
This question was answered on 9th July 2025

The Ministry of Justice publishes data on trials, convictions and sentencing outcomes at criminal courts in England and Wales (latest data to December 2024), available from the Criminal Justice Statistics page.

However, it is not possible to provide the number of people sentenced in their absence, as this is not held. Nor is it possible to provide data on the nationality of convicted defendants who were sentenced in their absence, as this information is not collected. This information may be held in court records, but to examine individual court records would be of disproportionate costs.

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