Schedule 8: Costs in criminal cases: service courts Part 3: Sentencing and punishment of offenders Schedule 9: Changes to powers to make suspended sentence orders: consequential and transitory provision Section 69: Fine for breach of suspended sentence order
393.At present the court has no power to impose a fine for breach of a suspended sentence order. Section 69 inserts a new provision into paragraph 8 of Schedule 12 to the 1991 Act. This will enable the court to impose a fine of up to £2,500 for breach of a suspended sentence order where it decides not to give effect to the custodial sentence.
394.A suspended sentence order is breached where an offender fails to comply with any community requirement or is convicted of another offence during the period for which the sentence is suspended. Any fine is enforced as it would be had it been imposed on conviction
395.Subsection (3) inserts a new provision giving the Secretary of State a power by order (subject to the negative Parliamentary procedure) to amend the maximum amount of a fine which may be imposed by the magistrates’ court or Crown Court in relation to a breach of a suspended sentence order. The power may only be exercised if it appears to the Secretary of State that there has been a change in the value of money. The power replicates the power of the courts in relation to breach of a youth rehabilitation order (see paragraph 10 of Schedule 2 to the 2008 Act). It also replicates a power conferred by section 67(7) of the Act in relation to a fine for breach of a community order.