By Fee Robinson
Read the full paper here: Sentence Reductions for Assisting the Police and Prosecution
Executive Summary:
• All common law jurisdictions award sentence reductions to offenders who provide assistance to the police or the prosecution. This assistance usually consists of information about other offenders or offending.
• This review examines the legal frameworks and practical implications regarding sentence reductions for offenders who assist the police and prosecution in England and Wales.
• Rooted in a pragmatic rationale rather, these provisions serve as a tool to encourage cooperation from offenders, especially in responding to serious and organised crime.
• Three distinct schemes regulate sentence reductions. The statutory procedure, governed by the Sentencing Act 2020 (sections 74 and 388), offers formal sentence reductions in exchange for assistance, but is contingent upon a guilty plea and seemingly limited to Crown Court cases.
• The common law ‘text’ procedure is a less formal mechanism whereby police provide a letter to the prosecution detailing the assistance offered. The Court of Appeal’s decision in Royle (2023) has clarified many key issues, including the factors determining sentence reductions and the interaction between assistance and guilty plea discounts.
• There is only very limited research into the reductions awarded for assisting the police and prosecution. Little is known about the levels of reduction awarded, offenders’ awareness of the assistance schemes, or public attitudes to the propriety of rewarding offenders for assisting in the prosecution of others.
