Published on:
31 January 2024
Blackmail, kidnap and false imprisonment guidelines – consultation
This consultation ran between 31 January and 24 April 2024.
What was this consultation about?
There are no guidelines for these serious offences and the Council felt that developing guidelines would be of benefit to courts.
The consultation paper was produced in order to seek views from as many people as possible interested in the sentencing of these offences.
To accompany the consultation, we also published a resource assessment for the guidelines, along with a statistical bulletin and data tables showing current sentencing practice for these offences.
Who should respond?
During the 12-week consultation period we sought views from anyone who uses sentencing guidelines in their work or who has an interest in sentencing. We also sought views from individuals and organisations representing anyone who could be affected by the proposals, including:
- victims and their families;
- defendants and their families;
- those under probation supervision or youth offending teams/supervision;
- those with protected characteristics: age, disability, gender reassignment, pregnancy and maternity, race, religion or belief, sex and sexual orientation.
What do we want to know?
Through this consultation process, we asked consultees to tell us about:
- the principal factors that make any of the offences included within the draft guidelines more or less serious
- the additional factors that should influence the sentence
- the types and lengths of sentence that should be passed
- whether there are any issues relating to disparity of sentencing and/or broader matters relating to equality and diversity that the guidelines could and should address, and
- anything else they thought we should consider
It is important to note that the Council consulted on sentencing these offences and not on the legislation upon which such offences are based. The relevant legislation is a matter for Parliament and was, therefore, outside the scope of this exercise.