WIREDGOV

On 13 October 2010 the Sentencing Council launched a 12 week consultation proposing changes to the guidelines that judges and magistrates use to sentence people for offences of assault.

The Sentencing Council has published a draft guideline, a full consultation paper intended for criminal justice professionals, a shorter public consultation paper, a resource assessment and an equality impact assessment.

If you are a member of the public and you wish to read and/or respond to the consultation please download the following document:

• Assault guideline – public consultation PDF 0.40mb
• Assault guideline – public consultation (large print version) PDF 0.17mb

Alternatively, you can complete our online questionnaire.

If you are a criminal justice professional (including members of the judiciary) and would like to read and/or respond to the consulation, please download the following document:

• Assault guideline – professional consultation PDF 0.53mb

Other useful documents:

• Assault – draft guideline PDF 0.35mb
• Assault – resource assessment PDF 0.23mb
• Assault – equality impact assessment PDF 0.05mb

The closing date for response is 5 January 2011. 

Please send your response by email, or by post to Nigel Patrick, Office of the Sentencing Council, Steel House, 11 Tothill Street, London, SW1H 9LJ.

Our consultations

Sentencing Council consultations will follow a similar process each time. Firstly, a consultation questionnaire will be issued with a draft guideline and a resource assessment. These documents will set out questions, suggestions and context for those responding, to comment on.

Once all the feedback has been received, the Council will issue a response to the consultation as well as an executive summary and final resource assessment document.

The final stage of the process is for the definitive guideline to be published.