Knife teens could be spared jail if they’re from troubled home
YOUNG thugs who carry knives may be spared jail if they are from bad homes or abusive families.
Laws passed last year said teenagers convicted of knife crimes must be locked up.
But sentencing rules issued yesterday said judges and magistrates should consider leniency if they think it will help a troubled teenager to reform.
The 2015 Criminal Justice and Courts Act said a 16 or 17-year-old must be given at least four months in a detention centre if found carrying a knife more than once, or if once caught threatening someone with a blade or a weapon.
Yesterday’s guidelines from the Sentencing Council – a body dominated by judges which hands down advice that courts must follow – said the law should lead to higher sentences only for adult offenders.
In the case of knife crime by youths, the council said its new rules would ‘encourage courts to look in far greater detail at the age/maturity, background and circumstances of each offender in order to reach the most appropriate sentence that will best achieve the aim of preventing reoffending, which is the main function of the youth justice system’.
The guidelines from the council, led by Lord Chief Justice Lord Thomas, have been sent out for consultation and are likely to go into operation next year.
Furious Tory MPs warned that lenient sentencing on knife crime will lead to the public losing confidence in the courts. Former minister Julian Brazier said: ‘Many members of the public will find this very disturbing. The judges should remember that Parliamentary sovereignty is the cornerstone of the rule of law.’
The guidelines do not tell judges and magistrates they should defy the 2015 Act setting out compulsory jail or detention centre sentences for knife-wielding thugs. However they instruct courts dealing with cases of youth knife crime that they must ‘consider the personal factors that may have played a part in the commission of the offence’ and that ‘these factors may be sufficient to reduce the sentence from one of custody to a non-custodial sentence’.
The new rules say that punishments outside detention may be most suitable if the offender was just short of a reasonable excuse for having a weapon, if there was minimal risk of the weapon being used, and if the weapon was involved in a ‘fleeting incident and no/minimal distress’.
They add that while the starting point for a court dealing with a youth armed with a dangerous weapon should be custody, mitigating factors should be taken into account. Among these are ‘unsta- ble upbringing including but not limited to numerous care placements, exposure to drug and alcohol abuse, lack of attendance at school, lack of familial presence or support, victim of neglect and/or abuse, exposure to familial criminal behaviour’.
The 2015 knife crime law, pushed through by David Cameron, says adult offenders should face mandatory six month sentences for two offences of possessing a knife, or one of threatening to use a weapon, and youth offenders should be given four months.
Lord Thomas is president of the Sentencing Council and is assisted by its chairman, appeal judge Lord Justice Treacy. The council’s 15 members include eight judges, a JP, a QC and director of public prosecutions Alison Saunders.
Tory MP Philip Davies said: ‘The Sentencing Council needs to realise that sentences handed down by the court need to command the confidence of the public, not just to be popular at liberal lawyers’ dinner parties. Parliament and the public have made clear knife crime should result in a prison sentence. These unelected and unaccountable worthy do-gooders should not be trying to subvert that.’
Justice minister Sam Gyimah said: ‘ Knife crime ruins lives. Our crackdown is working – under this government more people are being sent to jail for carrying a knife, and for longer. I want those who carry knives to feel the full force of the law. These new guidelines will help ensure sentences reflect the devastation caused to families and communities.’
‘The public will find this very disturbing’