Ah the good old Daily Excess. Nearly all newspapers are reluctant to admit they are ever wrong about anything whereas everyone else has to admit they are useless everyday. The Express (and often the Mail) are the very worst offenders.
Remember this is the fine paper that spent 5 years trying to tell us that Lady D had been murdered by MI5 or was it 6. Not through any pursuit of justice but only because they thought it may boost their sales to take a different view from others. Oh and Madeline Mc................etc etc
Misinformation Bystander? The problem here seems to me to be - what is the extent of the misinformation?
Readers shouldlook closely at the new Sentencing Guidelines which come into force on 4th August - see page 34 of the guidance:
http://www.sentencing-
guidelines...0Guidelines.pdf
On a fair reading of that it seems to me that the Daily Mail (for all its faults)has something of a point.
The guidance is based on R v McInerney and Keating where Lord Phillips CJ presided. He is well-known for his advocacy of non-custodial sentences.
http://www.bailii.org/ew/cases/E.../2002/
3003.html
Used to be a fan of yours Bystander but you're beginning to lose a sense of proportion. I'm a JP in West London. The latest suggestions from the SAP are just absurd - I know, I printed off their 140 page consultation document and read it line by line. The Express is indeed a total crock but on this one they're closer to good practice than you are I'm afraid.
Express-reading housebreakers everywhere will be devastated to think they may avoid jail.
After all, prisons are now so cushy no-one wants to escape. And drugs are so cheap inside prison you can make money smuggling them out to be sold on the street. It must be true: I read it in the Daily Express.
http://www.express.co.uk/posts/v...trade-i4n-
jails
Peter H and MB100 - you seem to be misrepresenting the document in question.
On p35 it indicates that
1) any burglary that involves violence, threats or is committed by someone who's alrady been convicted of two burglaries must be tried at Crown court.
2) the only kind of domestic burglary that doesn't carry a starting point of custody is one that features "Unforced entry and low value theft with no aggravating features" - precisely as Bystander states.
I don't think the Express is referring to the guidelines but to the new consultation document, specifically, para. 201:
'The Panel has also concluded that a presumption in favour of a community order is most likely to be appropriate in relation to the less serious offences of theft and dishonesty, burglary and motoring offences'
I have to admit that this is ambiguous - do they mean less serious cases of these offences, or that these offences are less serious in themselves?
Clearly "the less serious cases", as they mention elsewhere that they're referring to sub-1-year custodial sentences, whereas the average sentence for domestic burglary is well above a year.
However, the idiot who left the ambiguous wording in and handed the tabloids such a spectacular open goal should probably be horsewhipped.
Between you and me, I am coming under increasing organisatiol pressure to propose non-custodial sentences for such cases.
The Government is in huge trouble with a lack of prison places and, since we've been taken over by HMPS, we are asked to collude in this farce
JVIP
Does it make a difference if the burglars are under 18? Or 16?
@john b - I accept your point [1].
Re your point [2] you have to look at the ranges as well as the starting points. Where there is forced entry but goods stolen are not of high value and there are no aggravating features then the range is High Level Community Order to Crown Court. [That is for a first time offender who pleaded not guilty].
Also, you will see on page 34 the following statement:
Key factors
(a) Even where the custody threshold is passed, consider whether a community order is appropriate
(McInerney and Keating and refer also to page 160).
(b) Cases in the Crown Court category may be suitable for a community order (see note (a) above), but should nevertheless be committed to the Crown Court for trial/sentence so that any breach of the order can be sentenced within the powers of that Court.
The Daily Mail was accused of misinformation. To a degree that is right but they do have a point. These guidelines are far from the "almost every domestic burglar goes to jail" scenario presented by Bystander. The guidelines are quite well removed from public opinion.
There seems to be confusion here about published guidelines and the SAP consultation which is what the Express and others pounced on. On page 1 of that document it states there will be "independent research designed to test public opinion on a number of fundamental issues; the findings of that research will play a significant part in framing the revised guidelines." So everybody who is unhappy (or otherwise) can respond to the SAP paper and added to the independent research it may be that the guidelines will be modified one way or another. Take this all in conjunction with the report of the Sentencing Working Party published yesterday and there should be many changes ahead in the cj process.
Bystander, as usual you make a good point.
The term 'housebreaker' and 'housebreaking' are not archaic terms in Scotland and are in regular every day use there; although the story is clearly referring to the Law of England and Wales.
'What the Express wants people to think is that the sterotypical burglar (they use the archaic term 'housebreaker') who forces entry to a home and steals valuables will get a community penalty. He won't.'
Such faith Bystander, although I think your stance on this can be proven to be quite wrong by typing the phrase 'burlgar walks free from court' into Google. Admittedly, you will come across many non-dwelling offences that have been whipped-up by the media but rest assured the real 'housebreaking' offences are in there.
But you don't buy the Express to find out the truth, do you?
Absolutely not. I shoplift my copy daily from WH Smith on Waterloo station.
How many burglars actually reach court?
Do the police take notice of these deeds?
Perhaps we should consider changing the title of the offence from Burglary. The USA refers to it as "home invasion" which I think is a better description. You can only really ever know what it's like by being a burglary victim (even though I was not there at time). My wife and I were never settled or happy till we moved house. I know a Crown Court Judge (sadly passed on now) who was a victim and dealt with offenders robustly. Now every case should be reviewed on its merits but if the courts are not allowed to send out the right message, then we end up where we now are. No one should be under any illusion over the Governments intentions here.
Blind Beak: 'Results 1 - 5 of 5 for "burglar walks free from court"'
Oh yes, you well and truly proved your point there, lets try another google search:
'Results 1 - 10 of about 17,700 for "burglar jailed"'
Radams - not sure which version of Google you used but I just searched on "burglar walks free from court" and got 368,000 matches. My search of "burglar jailed" got 63,100 matches.
If you try "BUGLAR" you get considerably less matches but that doesn't surprise me as I was unaware of there being a problem with errant bandsmen!
Normal google.com, see for yourself
http://www.google.com/search?hl=...%22&
btnG=Search
Results 1 - 5 of 5 for "burglar walks free from court". (0.11 seconds)
http://www.google.com/search?hl=...%22&
btnG=Search
Results 1 - 10 of about 17,700 for "burglar jailed". (0.06 seconds)
For those who think the current guidelines are inadequate, there is an opportunity to comment in the current consultation by the Sentencing Advisory Panel. See their website http://www.sentencing-guidelines...v.uk/
index.html
"I just searched on "burglar walks free from court" and got 368,000 matches."
That's probably because you omitted the quote marks around the phrase, and good old Google therefore found every page which included the words "burglar", "walks", "free", "from" or "court", which is quite a lot.
Istaghfirullah... (the rough Arabic equivalent of "God give me strength")
Bystander has it spot on.
I defend/mitigate for people for a living. The only way that a more serious version of the offence will receive a non custodial (remembering that burglaries are way down in number nowadays anyway) is if a crown court judge (where the mags will have sent the case) decides that there is merit in imposing a Drug treatment Order because the offender is a junkie with some prospect of getting off it(ie has demonstrated the appropriate motivation with the probation service when awaiting sentence). And even then the offender would be told by the judge that if you stay clean and out of trouble you dont go to jail, if you fail you will get 3,4,5 years.
And these orders then come back before the same judge every month to monitor them.
Otherwise its go to jail straight away.
Very few `daily express` burglaries are committed by 1st time offenders. The 1st timers are generally kids pinching pencils from their classroom or breaking into a garden shed. Serious maybe, but not the same as going into someones occupied house in the middle of the night with or without a weapon.
I think there are arguments on both sides. The guidance does clearly state that even where the custody threshold is passed, the court should still consider a community sentence.
However, just as Bystander states, the actual guidelines are clear that even for the lowest level of dwelling burglary, the sentencing range will include custody for a first time offender. Although, the starting point is a medium level CPO.
I am somewhat concerned that MB-100 and Peter Hargreaves claim to have read the document in question and yet still make the comments they did.
I wonder whether the reason that most people are not receiving custody at their courts is because they are failing to follow the guidelines!
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