Member's statement: Sentencing Council

Member's statement by Mr Doug Beattie MC on 28 April 2026.

MLA

Mr Doug Beattie MC

Party at the time

Ulster Unionist Party

Date

28 April 2026

Type

Member's statement

Business

Members' Statements

Heading

Sentencing Council

Assembly identifier

Official Report component 5509512

Read the official Assembly record

Text

Yesterday, the Chair of the Justice Committee, Paul Frew, tabled an important motion to extend the Committee Stage of the Criminal Justice (Sentencing etc) Bill to 27 November. I am working hand-in-hand with Paul in that regard.

One of the elements of the Sentencing Bill is the increase in the sentence from 14 years to 20 years for drink- and drug-driving and dangerous driving, which I support. It happens that, yesterday, I met Peter Dolan to talk about the awful death of his son Enda Dolan. There is no party here that has not met Peter and heard his story about Enda. We are united in supporting him. He is absolutely clear that he supports raising the sentence from 14 years to 20 years for drug- and drink-driving and dangerous driving. We all support it. There is a fundamental problem, however. Enda's story is tragic and brutal — I will not go into it now — but the person who perpetrated that crime got seven years: 3·5 behind bars and another 3·5 on licence. The punishment for that crime was really 3·5 years. That was seen as unduly lenient and was extended to 4·5 years, meaning a nine-year sentence, which is nowhere near the 14 years that a judge can give as a maximum. We are talking about extending the sentence from 14 years to 20 years, but that makes absolutely no sense, because judges do not use the powers that they have to go to the maximum. That is why I have continued to argue for a sentencing council for Northern Ireland in line with what exists in England, Wales, Scotland and the Republic of Ireland. I make no apology for doing so. A sentencing council is a council that will hold the judiciary to account to make sure that judges use the maximum sentence. We have never seen the maximum 14-year sentence used for drug- or drink-driving — never. A sentencing council can do that, however. I have also raised the case countless times, and will again, that our judges, who do a really good job and have a difficult job to do — I am not critical of them — need personal, professional and continuous development that they have to attend. At the moment, they simply do not attend any personal and professional development. It should be compulsory. We need to move forward and create a sentencing regime that not only has rehabilitation at its heart but has deterrence and punishment and protects the people of Northern Ireland, but, until we put things in place such as a sentencing council and training for our judiciary, we will never achieve that. If we are going to meet what Enda's father wants us to meet, we need to move on that through the Sentencing Bill.

466 words. Text as published by the Northern Ireland Assembly.

Assessment

Not flagged

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Assessed 21 October 2026 at 15:27 UTC by jev-1.13.0 (requested as typesafe/jev) under rubric 2026.10-r9, methodology 1.9.

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