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We have highlighted in the past the worrying facts of inconsistencies in sentencing for like offences. In the last Newsletter we highlighted the fact that judges and sheriffs are now obliged to reward offenders for an early guilty plea by discounting their sentence by up to one third. [Criminal Procedure (Amendment) (Scotland) Act 2004] This discounted sentence is seen by victim families as a sweetener to save court time and money and does not serve justice well.
It is further very worrying to find inconsistencies not only in sentencing but in the discount given e.g. recently an offender who pled guilty at the first opportunity was given a discounted sentence of 25% while another offender was given a 20% discount in spite of the fact he tried to appeal his ‘early’ guilty plea through the court of session and had appeared in court some 15 times before sentencing, some 2 years after the offence!
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