It is reported that Barnard Hogan-Howe, the Chief constable of Merseyside Police, is taking issue with the authorities over sentences given to offenders found guilty of gun possession.
It seems that the Home Office guidelines include a mandatory five year sentence for those caught with a firearm.
Yet the average sentence given comes to 47 months, or just under four years.
Weasel words this morning from the Government claim that the five year sentence is only a starting point, and judges should take into account mitigating factors.
Perhaps the word "mandatory" has changed its meaning, is no longer a minimum which we had been led to believe, but is in fact a maximum. For an average of under four years, if anyone actually receives a five year year sentence, it means that others must receive well below that.
What are the mitigating circumstances in any case? Someone didn't know he was carrying a gun? Ignorance is no excuse in other areas of the law! Someone of reduced mental ability? This is generally true in much of law, but should he have been found guilty anyway?
There is a horrible suspicion that the mitigating circumstance are overcrowded prisons, and pleas from Government to judges to reduce or avoid gaol sentences. We have been made aware of some such appeals. How many more where there?
We are rapidly losing much of the deterrent value of prison by making sentences less predictable and offering the possibility of leniency. We need something a little firmer to aid in the fight against gun crime.
Well done, Chief Constable!
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