Thousand apologies given by criminals

SERIOUS assaults, cases of child cruelty and other crimes in Leicestershire have been dealt with via an apology in the past year.

Community resolutions, an informal settlement out of court, can include the offender apologising to any victims.

It means the offender escapes prosecution or a formal warning.

In Leicestershire, more than 1,000 violent crimes were dealt with in this way in the last year.

Figures from the Home Office reveal there were 29,465 violent offences dealt with by the county courts up to June.

Of those, 1,154 were settled out of court with a community resolution.

Guidelines on the use of community resolutions say they should only be used for less serious offences such as low-level criminal damage, low-value theft, minor assaults that don’t cause injury and anti-social behaviour.

They also state the victim should be consulted before a community resolution goes ahead, and the offender must admit they committed the crime.

A police spokeswoman said: “Community resolutions are part of the restorative justice process.

“Officers can use their professional judgement to assess an offence, taking into consideration the wishes of the victim and the offender’s history to reach a conclusion which best meets the interests of the victim and the public.”

Most of the violent crimes that led to a community resolution did not result in injury – in line with the guidelines. However, nearly one in every three were more serious cases that did involve injury – 331 violent crimes in total.

They included 327 cases of assault with injury, two of assault with injury on a constable and two of assault with intent to cause serious harm.

Other crimes deemed not to have caused injury included 467 cases of assault, 198 of harassment, 99 of malicious communications, 29 of threats to kill, 11 of stalking, 10 of assault without injury to a constable, four of racially or religiously aggravated harassment, three of racially or religiously aggravated assault without injury and two of cruelty to children.

Community resolutions only make up a small proportion of violent crime outcomes, working out as 4 per cent of all those that went through the system in Leicestershire in the past year.