Section 8: Offence of breaching stalking protection order etc.
This section provides that it is a criminal offence to breach the terms of an order or an interim order without reasonable excuse. It will be for a court to decide what constitutes a reasonable excuse in a particular case.
	Subsection (2) sets out that breach of an order or an interim order is an either way offence, meaning that it can be tried in either a magistrates’ court or a Crown Court depending on the seriousness of the offence. The penalty for breach on conviction by a magistrates’ court (‘summary conviction’) is imprisonment for a term not exceeding 12 months (or, in relation to an offence committed before section 154(1) of the Criminal Justice Act 2003 comes into force, six months), or a fine, or both. The penalty for breach on conviction by a Crown Court (‘conviction on indictment’) is imprisonment for a maximum term of five years, or a fine, or both.
	Subsection (4) provides that conditional discharge is not available to the courts on conviction for breach of an order or an interim order. A conditional discharge is where the court decides not to impose a punishment on the offender unless they go on to commit another crime, at which point they can be sentenced for both the earlier offence and the new one.