The Most Interesting Event in the Sentencing Council Scandal

It was more about the Council's reaction and what it says about larger parts of the judiciary...

Yesterday, the UK’s Sentencing Council officially suspended its proposed “two-tier” sentencing guidelines—just hours before they were due to take effect.

It marked a unbelievably close brush. If the rules had gone ahead, it would have arguably marked the first time in a century that explicit racial preferences were baked into judicial procedure.

To take you back to the start…

On March 5th, 2025, the Council released new guidelines for how community and custodial sentences should be imposed in England and Wales. What followed stunned both sides of the political aisle.

The guidance instructed magistrates and judges to “normally consider” ordering a pre-sentence report (PSR) but only for offenders who are ethnic minorities and/or from “faith minority” communities.

It also included women, those that disclosed they’re trans-identified, and those that have “addiction issues”.

The groups that were excluded: offenders who are white, Christian, male, and/or above 25-years-old.

Pre-sentence reports are drafted by probation officers to give courts background on an offender. The information they contain often persuades a judge to hand down a suspended or community sentence rather than immediate jail time.

A 2018 study by the Centre for Justice Innovation found that courts are over ten times more likely to give a community sentence if a PSR is included. A 2023 Ministry of Justice report found the same.

The implications were clear: leniency in sentencing would no longer be rooted in character, but in group identity.

For context, the Sentencing Council was established in 2010 under Gordon Brown’s Labour government after the Coroners and Justice Act received Royal Assent on November 12, 2009.

Aiming to promote transparency, public trust—and ironically—“consistency” in the criminal justice system, it is the official body responsible for setting sentencing guidelines.

Its members—appointed by the Lord Chancellor (with the current ones selected under Mahmood’s Conservative predecessors and with the agreement of the Lady Chief Justice)—include a mix of judges and non-judicial figures.

Past Lord Chancellors (left to right): Labour’s Shabana Mahmood, Tory Alex Chalk, Tory Dominic Raab, and Tory Robert Buckland.

It is chaired by Lord Justice William Davis, a Court of Appeal judge.

Lord Justice William Davis.

Other judicial members include Lady Chief Justice Baroness Sue Carr, Lord Justice Tim Holroyde, Judge Simon Drew KC, Mrs Justice Juliet May, Judge Amanda Rippon, Mr Justice Mark Wall, and District Judge Stephen Leake.

Judicial member of the Council (top left to bottom right): Baroness Carr, Judge Simon Drew KC, Justice Tim Holroyde, Judge Amanda Rippon, Mr Justice Mark Wall, and District Judge Stephen Leake.

Mrs Justice May.

Non-judicial members include Cambridge academic Dr Elaine Freer, Leicestershire Chief Constable Rob Nixon, Director of Public Prosecutions Stephen Parkinson, Director for Race, Prisons and Resettlement Services Beverley Thompson OBE, Judicial Conduct and Investigations Office disciplinary panel member Jo King JP, Richard Wright KC, and National Adviser to the Welsh Government on Violence against Women Johanna Robinson.

Non-judicial members of the Council (top left to bottom right): Dr Elaine Freer, Chief Constable Rob Nixon, Stephen Parkinson, Jo King, Johanna Robinson, and Beverley Thompson.

Richard Wright KC

From the moment the guidelines were announced on March 5th, the backlash was as swift as it was fierce.

Reform UK called it out first. Then came Conservative MPs. Even Labour’s own Justice Secretary, Shabana Mahmood, wrote to Council Chair Davis on March 6th condemning the change.

First, Mahmood ordered a review of the powers of the Council. And then, on March 20th, she wrote again, calling the guidelines a “question of policy” that should be left to elected officials, not an unelected body. Sentencing policy ought to be decided by those “accountable to the public… at the ballot” she argued.

After all, how could a group of supposedly impartial, highly respected professionals endorse a policy so blatantly political—if not outright racist?

They could have simply recommended that judges and magistrates order more PSRs across the board. You know—regardless of skin colour, sex, or belief.

Then the hammer dropped.

In the days that followed, the Council issued a series of statements—revealing far more than the guidelines ever did.

They defended the guidance, stating it was designed to account for disparities in sentencing outcomes and the “disadvantages faced within the criminal justice system.” The aim, they said, was to recognise “complexities in circumstances” that can only be properly understood through a pre-sentence report.

So they plan to fix alleged institutional bias… by introducing express institutional bias.

In the same statement, the Council claimed the guidance didn’t affect sentencing outcomes—PSRs, they insisted, merely offer “information.” They’re not mandatory but instructional and that the list isn’t exhaustive.

But that raised the obvious question: if these reports don’t influence sentencing, why are they being pushed as a way to “address disparities”? By their own standards, it didn’t make sense.

Even lawyers struggled to justify it. As TalkTV presenter Ian Collins found out the day after the guidance was published (the lawyer was stuttering by the end):

Days later, Council Chair Davis doubled down.

In a letter dated March 10th, he insisted: “The purpose of the list is to remind sentencers of the kinds of cases in which it is likely that they will require more information about the offence and the offender to reach an appropriate opinion of the sentence.”

In another letter, he declared “no errors were made” and confirmed the Council had “no basis” to revise the guidance.

Then came another gut punch.

Sixteen days after releasing their PSR guidance, news broke of the Council’s recent draft guidelines on immigration offences—guidelines that would significantly reduce the chances of foreign criminals being deported.

Their proposals called for judges to impose sentences of less than 12 months for several key immigration offences. Under UK law, foreign nationals sentenced to more than 12 months in prison are eligible for automatic deportation.

For example, knowingly entering the UK illegally carries a maximum sentence of four years. But the Council is recommending a starting sentence of just six months. Possession of false identity documents to illegally enter can be punished by up to ten years in prison. The Council wants the new starting point to be nine months.

In effect, the Council is recommending that judges actively sentence below the deportation threshold—allowing hundreds, potentially thousands, of illegal immigrants to stay in the country.

This immmigration guidance follows a wave of controversial deportation rulings, where officials are making incredibly subjective readings of human rights laws that allow foreign criminals to stay in Britain.

Recently, one Iraqi “asylum seeker"” avoided deportation because of an online relationship he had with a woman in his home country. A Kosovan cocaine dealer was spared removal after a judge ruled that his one-year-old daughter was too young to maintain a relationship over video calls. And in a decision that bordered on parody, an Albanian man was allowed to stay in the UK because of his son’s eating habits. The court heard he wouldn’t eat foreign chicken nuggets. So the immigration judge ruled it would be “unduly harsh” to move him to Albania.

Such rulings carry even greater weight when set against the growing evidence of political bias exhibited by certain members of the judiciary.

In February, The Telegraph revealed that Judge Sarah Pinder—who allowed a Zimbabwean paedophile to remain in Britain on the grounds he might face “hostility” back home—had previously written for Free Movement, a pro-migration blog, where she described UK detention centres as “truly abhorrent”.

Sarah Pinder

Last June, it emerged that Deputy Senior District Judge Tan Ikram—who handed down lenient conditional discharges to three pro-Palestine activists convicted of expressing support for a terrorist group—had previously “liked” a social media post describing Israel as a “terrorist” state and calling for a free Palestine.

Tan Ikram

And recently, Britain’s most senior judge, Baroness Sue Carr, openly criticised Keir Starmer for describing a controversial immigration ruling as “unacceptable”—after a judge allowed Gazan refugees to enter the UK under a scheme originally designed for Ukrainians. Carr suggested that questioning such verdicts amounted to a failure to “respect and protect” the judiciary.

So it seems there’s not only apparent bias, but a belief that they shouldn’t be subject to “unacceptable” criticism.

Sue Carr

The Council is no exemption. Several of its members have openly aligned themselves with arguably radical political causes.

Stephen Leake openly praised environmental activists who blocked the M25. In April 2022, while sentencing members of Insulate Britain, he told them: “I have heard your voices. They have inspired me. I intend to do what I can to reduce my own impact on the planet.”

Beverley Thompson has stated that the British justice system is “beleaguered” by the over-representation of ethnic minorities and described the Black Lives Matter movement as a “timely reminder” to criminal justice institutions.

Stephen Parkinson, the Director of Public Prosecutions—responsible for conducting criminal prosecutions in England and Wales—wrote a blog in 2020 supporting the BLM movement and describing himself as an “ally.”

Johanna Robinson, appointed to the council in 2023, condemned the Illegal Migration Bill that allows the deportation of illegal migrants. When MPs voted it through, she commented: “This removes the protection of the most vulnerable people... I am appalled.”

This was the legislation that granted the Home Secretary the authority to detain and deport any migrant arriving illegally in the UK—either to their home country or to a third country, such as Rwanda.

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Thoughts

So we’re left with this: an unelected quango, stacked with certain officials who have expressed strong progressive political views, quietly reshaping sentencing and immigration policy in Britain.

But the real scandal isn’t just a one-off case of judicial bias—it’s the normalisation of it.

Foreign criminals are avoiding deportation on flimsy grounds. Ordinary citizens are being harshly punished for speech crimes. Sentencing guidelines are being retooled to favour select identity groups.

And at the heart of it are certain seemingly captured, wholly unaccountable members of the judiciary (and a few lawyers and advisers)—presiding over it with impunity.

It makes one wonder what area they’re going to impose their “woke” beliefs on next.

And that’s just the judiciary.

Elsewhere, Justice Secretary Mahmood recently implemented new “two-tier” probation service rules that prioritised women, over-25s, ethnic minorities and trans-identified individuals for bail over—presumably—white men, again.

If only it all were an April Fool’s joke.

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