Home Affairs has said it is still looking into changing sentencing guidelines – calling it a “priority” – but says it can’t give any details yet about how punishments for offences might change.
The committee started work on reviewing sentencing guidelines nearly a year ago, with calls for them to be looked at going back years.
Deputy Marc Leadbeater, Home Affairs President, has confirmed the work has started – with a public consultation planned to gauge views.
Responding to questions asked by Deputy Ross Le Brun around sentences for motoring offences, Deputy Leadbeater said Home Affairs has “prioritised an independent Review of Sentencing this term and preliminary work has been undertaken to identify the key parameters of the review and the likely implications for timescales and costs”.
“The review will take an holistic approach, acknowledging the interaction of sentencing within the wider context of justice,” he explained.
Deputy Leadbeater declined to comment further, saying “it would be premature for the Committee to comment on individual offences and sentences that they might attract”.
He said Home Affairs has “already agreed that consultation will be a key part of the review” and that more details will be published as the work goes on.
Deputy Leadbeater also reiterated that “sentencing is a matter for the Courts, and it is not for the Committee to comment on specific cases or recent sentencing outcomes”.
Sentencing
Where sentences given by the courts are considered by those involved to be too harsh or too lenient, the individuals sentenced can apply for leave to appeal, or the Law Officers can appeal on behalf of the Crown.
Recent examples have included Kirk Bishop who was given leave to appeal part of his eight year prison sentence for a number of “wicked and depraved offences”, including secretly filming people in their own homes, after a Judge agreed with his defence advocate that he hadn’t been given enough credit for cooperating with police and pleading guilty to his crimes.
He could receive a shorter or longer sentence when his appeal is heard, which is expected to happen in December.
The Law Officers appealed the sentence given to Steven Beausire for sexually assaulting a child and importing MDMA and cannabis last week, arguing his eight year sentence was “unduly lenient”. The appeal judge agreed and increased his sentence to 11-years.
Sentencing guidelines for most crimes were drawn up many years ago.
It is acknowledged that sentences for some crimes – including sexual offences – attract public outcry due to their perceived leniency.
Motoring laws were updated last year with convictions under the newly clarified laws carrying mandatory driving disqualifications, and defined maximum prison sentences.
Most drug sentences in Guernsey are based on the ‘Richard’s Guidelines’ which relate to the sentences given to a man called Mark Richards who was jailed alongside others for drug offences in 2001.
The issue was pushed to the fore in 2025, when the Court of Appeal reduced a young man’s sentence for importing controlled substances into Guernsey.
In that case the controlled substance was THC and it was contained within ‘candy bars’.
23-year-old Cory Le Sauvage was sentenced to 10 and a half years in prison based on the total weight of the bars, and not the weight of the illegal THC that the bars contained.
His sentence was reduced after his defence advocate argued that his sentence was based on the Richard’s Guidelines which were drawn up in 2002, before ‘edibles’ had entered the market.
