Judges criticise sentencing reforms

Justice Secretary Kenneth Clarke's sentencing reforms could lead to criminals spending too little time behind bars, some of the country's top judges have warned.

Proposals to halve the length of prison sentences for defendants who plead guilty early could even result in innocent people being jailed and the public losing confidence in the criminal justice system, they said.

Lord Justice Thomas, vice-president of the Queen's Bench Division, and Lord Justice Goldring, the senior presiding judge of England and Wales, said reducing sentences by any more than a third, as happens at the moment, would fail to reflect the seriousness of the offences.

The plans could lead to a defendant being sentenced to three years in jail, but having this reduced to 18 months and then only serving nine months - or even less if eligible for a home detention curfew, the judges said.

"Such a relatively minimal period in custody (albeit only a few months short of the present position) would cross the line into becoming an inappropriate reflection of the original culpability," they said. "The longer the notional sentence after a trial the more likely that is to be the case."

The proposal to halve sentences for those who plead guilty at the earliest possible opportunity was outlined by Mr Clarke in his sentencing Green Paper, which drew criticism for being too soft on crime, last year.

In their response, the judges said: "In our view, it would not be right neither as a matter of principle nor as a matter of practice to go beyond a maximum discount of one third. Any greater increase beyond that would give rise to a real risk of loss of confidence by the public in the criminal justice system.

"A discount of 50% for an (early) indication of guilt... risks, even for a suspect whose lawyer is present, crossing the boundary between giving the guilty the incentive to plead guilty and leading the innocent into making false admissions."

"There will always be a proportion of offenders who will wait to plead guilty, if at all, until the last minute - when it finally becomes clear that the prosecution case contains no loopholes that can be exploited, and that all the important witnesses are going to attend."

Instead of greater discounts, there should be a "greater distinction between the discount available at the first stage and that available later through the process", they said.