Commentary on Sections Part 2: Notification and Orders Section 132: Offences with thresholds
264.Section 132 provides that where an offence in Schedule 3 has a sentence (or other disposal, e.g. hospital order) threshold (“a sentencing condition”), the offender is to be regarded as having been convicted of that offence, or as having had a finding relating to that offence made in respect of him, only when the sentencing condition is met. This applies only to Part 2 of the Act. Establishing the date of a conviction or finding is important because it triggers the date when the notification requirements start to apply to the offender. For example, under section 83, an offender is required to make an initial notification at a police station within 3 days of the date of his conviction or finding for a relevant offence. In the case of offences with sentencing conditions, the notification requirements will only apply where the conditions are met and this will not be known until the offender is dealt with by the court. This could be some time after the conviction or finding in question. For example, a 25 year old who is convicted of sexual assault against a 20 year old woman would not be required to ‘register’ until he was sentenced to imprisonment for that offence or given an 12 month community sentence in respect of it by the court. Subsection (3) to subsection (6) cover foreign convictions and findings. These are relevant when determining whether to make a notification order and may be relevant in deciding whether to make a sexual offences prevention order or a foreign travel order. The effect of the subsections is the same as that of subsection (3) on convictions and findings in the United Kingdom, i.e. the date of the conviction or finding will be the date when the relevant sentencing conditions for the offence are met.
265.The offences in Schedule 5 (offences in relation to which which a sexual offences prevention order can be made) do not currently have sentencing conditions. However subsection (4) of section 130 provides a power which will enable the Secretary of State to amend sentencing conditions for offences in Schedules 3 and 5 in future. Subsection (8) of section 132 therefore extends the provisions to cover Schedule 5.