Debate contribution: Sentencing Practices in Northern Ireland

Debate contribution by Mr Doug Beattie MC on 23 June 2025.

MLA

Mr Doug Beattie MC

Party at the time

Ulster Unionist Party

Date

23 June 2025

Type

Debate contribution

Business

Private Members' Business

Heading

Sentencing Practices in Northern Ireland

Assembly identifier

Official Report component 5046055

Read the official Assembly record

Text

I beg to move

Thank you, Mr Speaker. Justice must not only be done but be seen to be done. More than that, people must have confidence that our justice system works. It is clear, however, that confidence in our criminal justice system is being eroded daily. Part of the problem, though certainly not all of it, is our sentencing regime, an issue that I have raised on many occasions. On a wider issue, it is worth reflecting on the most recent Criminal Justice Inspection Northern Ireland (CJINI) report on our criminal justice system. The report said that inspectors found that:

"Since the devolution of policing and justice ... 15 years ago ... there had been limited improvement in the overall performance of the criminal justice system".

Further, they found that there was no:

"collectively agreed vision and strategic priorities shared by the DoJ and the key criminal justice organisations".

That is in line with the 'Review of the Northern Ireland Policing Board', which described the tripartite relationship as showing:

"no evidence of a shared collective vision – a shared direction – a unified front".

According to the Criminal Justice Inspection report, that has led to criminal justice outcomes remaining "relatively static" despite numerous strategies and policies, with "impactful change" being "slow". The Ulster Unionist Party's motion lays out areas that will, we believe, bring about meaningful change and, importantly, increase confidence in a beleaguered criminal justice system. First, we call for compulsory and continuous personal and professional development for our judges. Their training is the responsibility of the Lady Chief Justice (LCJ) through the Judicial Studies Board for Northern Ireland. That has been the case since the Constitutional Reform Act 2005. We believe that delivering that training must be more than an invitation to attend. There must be directed attendance with registered outcomes in order to ensure that our judges are equipped with the knowledge that they need to exercise their judicial functions. In doing so, the training should aim to ensure that judges understand that the language that they use during a trial or in passing sentence must be designed to give confidence to the public. We simply cannot have a repeat of the situation where a serious predatory sex offender was told by the judge to find a wife and start a family or that he should not be excluded from normal life and should be allowed to use the same internet dating site that he used to target the woman whom he sexually assaulted. Such language creates moral and societal outrage and undermines confidence. That brings me to the issue of lenient sentencing in Northern Ireland, particularly sentence discounts or credits or the fact that judges are able to deviate from mandatory minimum sentencing. Sentencing in Northern Ireland is complex. It has been stated that:

"Consistency in the sentencing process is an important aspect of fairness. Fairness also requires that the particular circumstances of individual cases are taken into account in determining the appropriate outcome."

Yet, in Northern Ireland, we have put the perpetrator in the driving seat. If the perpetrator admits guilt at the earliest opportunity, they receive up to a third off their sentence. The reason for that is well known. It saves time, money and resources, and it saves the victim from having to go through the pain of a trial. OK, I can get behind that. I think that getting a third off a sentence is excessive, but it is similar to the rest of the United Kingdom. However, here is where I really am concerned.

If the perpetrator pleads not guilty and then decides to wait to see how the evidence stacks up, puts his victim through perhaps two or three years of worry while waiting for the trial and then decides at the last moment, even on the day that the trial starts, to plead guilty, he could receive up to 25% — a quarter — off his sentence. Why would a perpetrator therefore not chance his arm? That is an obscene amount of sentence reduction. Let me be clear: it is our party's belief that individuals should get one chance to plead guilty, and that is at their arraignment hearing or earlier. If they do, they will receive a sentence reduction. If they do not, the opportunity should be taken away from them. If perpetrators then decide to plead guilty, it should be up to the judge to decide whether they are entitled to have any time taken off their sentence, but that needs to be backloaded. What do I mean by "backloaded"?

I do not think that I will be able to. I am really sorry, Mr Speaker. Minister, you probably just caught me at the sentence at which I was about to say what I believe should be meant by backloading that element when, as you just said, somebody enters a late guilty plea. It means that they get should time off their licence not off their custodial sentence. That is what I mean by "backloading". I am aware that there is a consultation —.

Go ahead.

Yes, I can. If I had time, I would be able to go through it all with you, but I do not, so I will have to be pretty sharp and frugal with my words. Not all, but the vast majority of sentences are 50% custodial and 50% on licence. That is roughly what people see happen. It is not exact, and I do not have the time to go through it all exactly. What I am saying is that, if you are going to give somebody a sentence reduction, take it off the time that they have on licence, not off the time that they spend behind bars. Let us remember why we have custodial sentences. I am conscious of Sinn Féin's amendment, which deals with rehabilitation, and I have no issue with it whatsoever. I will support the amendment, and I look forward to hearing what its Members have to say on public protection. Punishment and deterrence, however, are also included among the reasons for a custodial sentence, and we seem to have forgotten about those two core principles, even though 80% of the people in jail currently are repeat offenders. Our sentencing is weak and ineffective, particularly for crimes of a sexual nature against women and girls. There is a case of an individual with hundreds of sexually explicit pictures of children getting a suspended sentence. In 2023, the perpetrator of the rape of a 14-year-old girl received just 18 months in jail. In 2024, a two-year jail term was given to a 51-year-old man who raped a woman whom he had met on a dating site. In 2025, for the sexual abuse of two girls aged six and eight, the perpetrator got six years. In the case of a vulnerable teenage girl who was raped by a 47-year-old man, the sentence was four years behind bars. That is not good enough. People do not think that it is good enough, and they do not view the licence element of the sentence as being just. I guess that that is the point that I am trying to make. What can help? The Ulster Unionist Party believes that the establishment of a sentencing council could give judges stronger direction on sentencing, not just guidance. A sentencing council would have the ability to take away a lot of the discretion in judges' determinations and, in doing so, achieve exactly what people want, which is consistency, transparency, fairness, the sentence to match the crime and a system that is understood. Go to the Judiciary NI website, and, under the sentencing guidelines for sexual offences, you will find 58 entries that outline case law.

It is from that that judges form their decisions, along with maximum and minimum —.

1,308 words. Text as published by the Northern Ireland Assembly.

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