Re-think on plans to cut murder sentences
Plans to reduce the sentences given to murderers who plead guilty have been watered down amid widespread opposition.
The Sentencing Guidelines Council (SGC) had proposed that judges should reduce sentences by a third for murderers who confessed at the earliest opportunity.
Lord chief justice Lord Woolf said the guidelines were issued to recognise the need to spare victims and witnesses the trauma of going to court.
He stressed that the one-third reduction would only be issued in extraordinary circumstances.
However, the SGC has revised the proposals and now states that possible reductions on murder sentences would have to be “weighed carefully” by a judge so they did not lead to “an inappropriately short sentence”.
And it states that where it is appropriate to reduce the minimum term following a plea of guilty, the maximum reduction would be one sixth and should never exceed five years.
In a statement on Wednesday, Lord Woolf said the diverse backgrounds and experience of the members of the SGC had worked to improve the final sentencing guidelines.
“I am confident, as a result, that judges will be better placed to deliver sentences which are effective both as punishments and deterrents to offending and re-offending,” he said.
Shadow Home Secretary David Davis welcomed the re-think, saying: “Sentences should fit the crime and there is no more a serious crime than murder. Murder should not be subject to a cheap discount scheme”.
