Indications on sentence meaning

Environmental guidelines The Sentencing Council (SC) issues offence-specific sentencing guidelines for magistrates’ courts and the Crown Courts in England and Wales covering the unauthorised or harmful deposit, treatment or disposal of waste, unlawful discharges to air, water and land, and other environmental offences (the environmental guidelines). They identify the pertinent aggravating and mitigating features of serious environmental offending that courts should weigh when passing sentence. For detailed guidance on sentencing environmental offences, see Practice Notes: Sentencing organisations for environmental offences and Sentencing individuals for environmental offences. These environmental offences guidelines are bolstered by the SC’s General guideline—overarching principles, expressly designed to be used alongside offence specific guidelines and providing expanded explanations of aggravating and mitigating factors (see Practice Note: Sentencing Council General Guideline—overarching principles—Using the General Guideline in conjunction with offence specific guidelines). Those features, together with judicial indications of relevant mitigation in authorities including R v Thames Water Utilities (2015), R v Southern Water Services, R v Sellafield and R v Thames Water Utilities (2019), should be...

ARCHIVED: This Practice Note is archived and not maintained. This Practice Note outlines the principal updates to the Criminal Procedure Rules 2020, SI 2020/759 (CrimPR), introduced by the Criminal Procedure (Amendment No 2) Rules 2021, SI 2021/849. The CrimPR prescribe the practice and procedure to be followed in all criminal courts in England and Wales. The 2021 amendments adjust procedures in the following areas: Management of cases in the magistrates’ court Sentence indications in the magistrates’ court Court‑held case information and its disclosure to lawyers and the public Committal of cases to the Crown Court where the defendant is absent Service of applications to vary restraining orders Time limit for appeals against conviction to the Crown Court Witness and expert evidence, and applications for search warrants These amendments came into force on 4 October 2021. For further analysis, see News Analysis: Changes to the CrimPR this autumn—Criminal Procedure (Amendment No 2) Rules 2021. Indication of sentence...

Judicial independence Judicial independence is the bedrock of the rule of law. The criminal justice system’s integrity rests on hearings that are open, fair, and decided by a tribunal that is both independent and impartial. Alongside those core tenets sits the imperative that justice is delivered promptly, and with that comes an accepted place for plea discussions. A prospective indication of the likely sentence forms part of that framework. The value of receiving such an indication early is that a defendant can reach a more informed view on whether to enter a guilty plea. The Attorney General’s guidelines on accepting pleas stress transparency in the administration of justice and, in particular, prescribe a structured method for giving sentence indications in the Crown Court. These are commonly referred to as ‘Goodyear indications’. The Court of Appeal, in R v Goodyear, promulgated guidance that effectively introduced a formal procedure for advance sentence indications. That guidance now appears in paragraph 9.4 of the Criminal Practice Directions 2023. Its purpose is to guard...