BensGrandad
New member
Magistrates and judges have to abide by sentencing guidelines issued by the Sentencing Council. They are designed to provide consistency of sentencing and work fairly well. They define the Starting Point for any offence and for Affray it's custody. That's not to say, though, that the custody cannot be suspended and some requirements imposed such as unpaid work or alcohol/drug treatment.
My gut feeling is that Stokes, if pleading (or found) guilty, will get a suspended sentence with a couple of hundred hours of unpaid work.
As to prison overcrowding, in my opinion, a lot of it is down to drugs and until we, as a society, have a sensible discussion about drugs and include decriminalising as part of the discussion, then we will continue to send addicts to prison for petty crimes committed to feed a habit; I've personally (with a heavy heart but no choice) had to send someone down for shoplifting to feed a habit when really what was needed was treatment to address the addiction.
Do you not think that the starting sentence should be a substantial fine and then added to by the severity of the offense increasing rather than the other way, going downwards with mitigation.