Criminal Liability in Regulatory Contexts Responses - Law ...

1.33 Using fixed-penalty fines or cautions for any criminal offence other than one
which may be proved without oral evidence (eg speeding) diminishes the
message to the offender that the offence is sufficiently serious. If a person can
received a £60 fixed penalty ticket for speeding, and an £80 fixed penalty ticket
for theft from a shop or using violence in the street, the message given to him (I
shall use ‘he’ and ‘him’, but these apply equally to female persons) is that stealing
from a shop is no more serious than a motoring offence.
1.34 Even if the fixed penalty was increased from £80, the point remains essentially
the same: that if a criminal offence is no more serious in its disposal than a
motoring offence, defendants will see them as no more serious or blame-worthy,
and – worse – those who might be tempted to commit such offences will not be
dissuaded from committing them if they know that there will be no public
knowledge of the penalty.
1.35 What message is given to the public when they see a man fighting in the street,
see him arrested and then learn (if they do) that he has been given just an £80
ticket?
1.36 Half of such tickets are unpaid. There is, therefore, no punishment in those
cases.
1.37 Cautions are given on serious offences in some areas, including Domestic
Violence. Given that two women each week, on average, are killed in domestic
violence situations, that is surely the wrong message to give to both offender and
victim.
1.38 The stigma of going to court, with the potential for reporting in the local
newspapers, has some deterrent effect.
1.39 Giving an offender a fixed penalty or caution is ‘justice behind closed doors’. The
public do not know about it (although Staffordshire Police have been doing some
excellent work to try to let local people know about such matters in their area –
but that defeats the object, namely of saving police time in prosecuting offenders,
given that they then have to spend time putting a report together to go out in a
glossy publication to local people).
1.40 Is it justice at all? Everyone can tell of cases in which people have admitted guilt
simply to get out of the police-station. No matter how well the police officer
explains that an offence should only be admitted if the person is sure he
committed it, many such cases are dealt with without legal advice and
admissions are made because the person believes that will be the end of it. In
one case brought to my attention by a Magistrate who is also a Chair of School
Governors, a teacher admitted theft from a shop for that reason, only to find that
a CRB check told her Headteacher that she had admitted the offence. Both he
and the Chair of Governors accepted her explanation, but unfortunately that
school is to close, so that she now has to apply for other teaching jobs – with an
offence of theft against her that will show up on each CRB check. She says that
she was told that if she admitted the offence that would be the end of it, whereas
if she continued to deny it, she would be charged and probably convicted, with
attendant publicity. She chose to admit the offence and accept the caution – with
the above consequences. There will be many such cases.
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