RISK OF REOFFENDING

The Sexual Offences Act 2003 s.82 was incompatible with the European Convention on Human Rights 1950 art.8 in subjecting certain sex offenders to notification requirements indefinitely without the opportunity for review. As a matter of principle, an offender was entitled to have the question of whether the notification requirements continued to serve a legitimate purpose determined on a review.

A sentence of imprisonment for public protection imposed following a plea of guilty to sexual offences was upheld where, having regard to the facts of the case and the offender’s previous convictions, the judge had been justified in concluding that he posed a significant risk of causing serious personal injury. However, the specified minimum term of two years was modified to take into account time the offender had already spent in custody.

A disqualification from working with children was inappropriate where the offender posed a low risk of harm to young girls only and it was therefore replaced with a sexual offences prevention order reflecting this.

A sentence of a three-year supervision order imposed on a 17-year-old for offences of sexual assault on a child under 13 and causing a child to engage in sexual activity was not unduly lenient, as the long-term need for public protection required appropriate intervention that would not be provided by the imposition of a detention and training order.

It was inappropriate to impose a sentence of imprisonment for public protection pursuant to the Criminal Justice Act 2003 s.225 on an offender convicted of making indecent photographs of children, because the link between the offending act of downloading images and the possible harm to children was too remote to satisfy the requirement that the offender’s reoffending would cause serious harm.

A sentence of imprisonment for public protection following an offender’s conviction for making indecent photographs of children was unreasonable where on the facts there was no significant risk of his causing serious harm to others. A sentence of 12 months’ imprisonment was substituted.

An order under the Powers of Criminal Courts (Sentencing) Act 2000 s.86 extending the licence period of a sentence until the end of the full length of the custodial term should not have been made where the psychiatric evidence was that the offender, who had been convicted several years after he committed the offence, was no longer a danger to the public.

A sentence of imprisonment for public protection with a minimum term of two years and six months was appropriate in the case of a 23-year-old man who had pleaded guilty to two offences of raping a child under the age of 13, one offence of meeting a child following sexual grooming, one offence of sexual activity with a child, and 10 offences of making an indecent photograph of a child.

A judge had been wrong to undertake a trial of an issue concerning a defendant’s alleged conduct prior to an offence that had neither been admitted nor proved by verdict and further erred in using his findings against that defendant to form the basis of an assessment of dangerousness under the Criminal Justice Act 2003. However, in the circumstances, the judge was correct to impose imprisonment for public protection.