Jurisdiction(s):
United Kingdom

Defence mitigation at sentencing: practitioner checklist, key factors, character and medical evidence, and practical tips (England and Wales)

Published by a LexisNexis Corporate Crime expert

Checklists

How a sentence is reached

When passing sentence, the court typically weighs the statutory sentencing range, the relevant Sentencing Council (SC) guidance—including any offence‑specific guideline—the overarching guidance, and sentencing authorities from the Court of Appeal. The SC’s offence‑specific or general guideline provides a mandatory step‑by‑step method the court must apply. See Practice Notes: Sentences imposed following conviction and Sentencing Council General Guideline—Overarching Principles. In most cases the court will consider:

the appropriate starting point within the Sentencing Guidelines
any aggravating features of the offence
mitigation and the defendant’s personal circumstances
any discount for a guilty plea
whether the offender is dangerous and presents a significant risk of harm through further specified offences
any suitable ancillary orders
the totality of the sentence to ensure proportionality to the offending behaviour

Mitigation

The SC’s guidelines, together with the general guideline, contain non‑exhaustive examples of mitigating factors that may lead the court to reduce the sentence...

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Adam Craggs

RPC

Adam Craggs is a partner and head of RPC's Tax, Investigations and Financial Crime Team. He has been advising clients for over thirty-five years on contentious tax and financial crime matters. Adam typically acts for high-net-worth individuals, family offices, trustees and corporates. He assists his clients on a wide range of contentious tax and financial crime issues, including investigations conducted by UK regulatory bodies. He advises those facing criminal fraud investigations and prosecutions and assists those facing urgent crisis situations, such as a 'dawn raid'. During his long career, Adam has led many cases through the civil and criminal courts, including several before the Supreme Court and the Court of Justice of the European Union.He is experienced in managing complex cross-border international investigations, both civil and criminal....

Thomas Jenkins

RPC

Tom is Of Counsel in RPC's Tax, Investigations and Financial Crime team. He has extensive experience in conducting anti-corruption investigations and advising on the implementation and enhancement of compliance programmes. He advises individual and corporate clients facing a wide range of financial crime and regulatory defence challenges, including multi-jurisdictional investigations and prosecutions involving bribery, corruption, fraud, money laundering and market abuse.Tom acts for clients in a broad range of sectors with particular experience in engineering, heavy industry, construction, aviation, oil and gas, finance, commodities trading and healthcare. ...

Web page updated on 20/05/2026

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