Schedule 8: Costs in criminal cases: service courts Part 3: Sentencing and punishment of offenders Community orders Section 66: Duration of community order
373.Section 66 makes provision about when a community order comes to an end.
374.Currently a community order must specify a date by which all the requirements in the order must have been complied with. This date may not be more than three years after the date of the order. However, there is no express provision about when the order itself comes to an end.
375.Subsections (1) and (2) amend section 177(5) of the 1991 Act and insert new subsections (5A) and (5B). These amendments provide that a community order comes to an end on the date specified under section 177(5). (This is subject to specific provision in relation to an unpaid work requirement, where the order continues in force until the requirement is complied with.) Where an order imposes two or more requirements, a court may specify end dates for each of those requirements, and where it does so, the last of those end dates must be the same as the date specified under section 177(5) (that is, the date at which the order comes to an end).
376.Subsections (3) and (4) allow magistrates’ courts and the Crown Court respectively to extend the duration of an order by up to 6 months where the offender has breached a requirement in an order.
377.Subsection (5) allows magistrates’ courts and the Crown Court to extend the duration of an order otherwise than for breach of the order.