§ Mr. Rawlinsonasked the Secretary of State for the Home Department if he is aware of the difficulties experienced by courts in sentencing persons under Section 460 (5) of the Criminal Justice Act, 1948, since they are often ignorant of what considerations, if any, have been given to the circumstances of the original offence by the court which has imposed sentence for the further offence; and if he will consider the amendment of the law so as to provide that the court which sentences the offender for the original offence should also sentence the offender for the offence which has been committed during the probation period.
§ Mr. R. A. ButlerI assume that my hon. Friend is referring to Section 8 (5) of the Criminal Justice Act.
I agree that there is advantage in an offender who is already subject to a probation order or order of conditional discharge being dealt with, wherever possible, by one court, both for the further offence and for the original offence. My hon. Friend's proposal is not, however, practicable because in some cases it would involve persons convicted before superior courts being sent for sentence to magistrates' courts with limited sentencing powers, and this would be unacceptable for a number of reasons. Subsections (6) and (7) of Section 8, which enable the court dealing with the fresh offence to deal also with an earlier offence in respect of which a court of summary jurisdiction has made a probation order or an order of conditional discharge, go as far as it is possible to go to achieve what my hon. Friend appears to have in mind.