Schedule 8: Costs in criminal cases: service courts Schedule 17: Restatement of transitional provision Chapter 5: Dangerous Offenders Section 124: New extended sentences
657.Section 124 inserts new sections 226A and 226B in the 1991 Act. Those sections create new extended sentences for adults and persons under 18 respectively. The sentences may be imposed in respect of the sexual and violent offences listed in Schedule 15 to the 1991 Act (referred to as “specified offences”) where certain conditions are met. For both sentences, the court must consider that the offender presents a substantial risk of causing serious harm through re-offending.
658.For adults, two further conditions apply as alternatives. Either the court must consider that the current offence is serious enough to merit a determinate sentence of at least 4 years, or at the time the present offence was committed the offender must have previously been convicted of an offence listed in new Schedule 15B.
659.The second of these alternative conditions does not apply in respect of persons under 18.
660.Where these conditions are made out, the court may impose an extended period for which the offender is to be subject to a licence (an ‘extension period’) of up to 5 years for a violent offence and up to 8 years for a sexual offence. Schedule 15 lists violent and sexual offences separately. Specific provision is made about the release on licence of persons serving sentences under these new sections - see section 125 below.