Consulting Position

Last month the Ministry of Justice launched a consultation on doubling from 12 months to two years the maximum sentence for common assaults on workers in emergency services such as police officers, firefighters and paramedics. Although the maximum was raised from six to 12 months as recently as 2018 in the Assaults on Emergency Workers (Offences) Act, the consultation on increasing it yet further was promised in the 2019 Conservative manifesto.

According to the Sentencing Council (who themselves have recently consulted on guidelines for violent offences), common assault usually involves minor injuries with no lasting impact.  The Crown Prosecution Service (CPS) say that anything more than grazes, scratches, abrasions, minor bruising, swellings, reddening of the skin and superficial cuts should be charged as Assault Occasioning Actual Bodily Harm (ABH) which carries a maximum sentence of 5 years (7 for the racially aggravated version of the offence).  When there is really serious harm, GBH will be the offence- and for both ABH and GBH the fact that the victim is an emergency worker makes the offence more serious for sentencing purposes. 

  

There’s a strong argument that assaults on people who protect society and deliver services on our behalf is a more serious matter than an attack simply on an individual victim and whether the best way to respond to such assaults of whatever kind is through yet harsher punishment is a depressing but not unreasonable question to raise.

What’s less reasonable is for the Ministry of Justice to rely only on the actual or potential victims of the offence to help them answer it. Rather than proceeding with a public consultation, the MoJ has undertaken “targeted engagement” with 70 plus groups representing emergency workers along with the CPS, judiciary, lawyers and the Sentencing Council.  The representative groups include professional associations and trade unions, some familiar -the Police Federation, Prison Officers Association and Royal College of Nurses – some less so – the British Dietetic Association and the British Orthoptic Society.  

There was no consultation document as such but a letter from Justice Secretary Robert Buckland inviting consultees to give their “views as to whether the current maximum penalty provides the courts with sufficient powers to reflect the seriousness of the offending”. Feedback could include “the direct experiences of emergency workers or any qualitative or quantitative data you may hold on the operation of the existing legislation”.

What’s lacking is any consideration of the impact that the change might have on courts and prisons or the possibility that aims of sentencing other than punishment- particularly reparation to victims or the reform of offenders might be worth pursuing more vigorously in these types of case. Nor is the opportunity to comment on the knock on effects that such a big change might have on how courts may deal with ordinary assaults on members of the public.    

It rather looks as if the government has made its mind up what it wants to do and is looking simply for supporting evidence. Home Secretary Priti Patel described the consultation as sending “a clear and simple message to the vile thugs who assault our emergency workers – you will not get away with such appalling behaviour and you will be subject to the force of the law”. 

In fact, as Buckland’s letter explains, since the original legislation came into force in November 2018, of the 9,000 offenders sentenced for assaulting an emergency worker only one in six was given an immediate custodial sentence, the average length of which was 2.6 months. This does not suggest that courts are frustrated by the current 12 month maximum. The government clearly is.

The Sentencing Council expects their forthcoming guideline to increase sentencing levels when it comes into force. Unlike the MoJ, in finalising their guideline they will take account of the views of interested members of the public, professionals in the criminal justice field, academics and people with experience of the criminal justice system- and publish a response following consultation.

Buckland does not intend to publish a government response following his own targeted consultation. It’s probably clear what it will be.