I am appalled at the decision of the Sentencing Council, who produce the sentencing guidelines for both the Crown and Magistrates’ courts, to downgrade all but the most serious assault cases, but especially so concerning that dealing with the offence of ‘Assault on a Police Constable in the Execution of his Duty’.
http://www.sentencingcouncil.org.uk/guidelines/forthcoming-guidelines.htm
Under these new guidelines, which the courts must follow unless there are exceptional circumstances justifying diversion, only the most serious of such assaults will result in imprisonment.
It has been a long-held principle of sentencing that those performing a public service should be afforded rigorous protection by the courts, and non more so than the police.
We enjoy something that few other countries do, an unarmed police force, and if we expect our police to put themselves in harm’s way on our behalf then we owe a corresponding duty to offer them the protection that comes from the certain knowledge that those who seek them harm will go to prison, no ‘ifs’ no ‘but’s’!
OK so the prisons are full, but there are lines which we cross at our peril, and this is one of them. None of us want to see a repetition of the unacceptable face of policing evident at some recent demonstrations but we can’t have it both ways. If the courts are unable, through the dictates of the Sentencing Council, to protect the police then it is logical to expect them to protect themselves, and that takes us down a road I don’t wish to travel.
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