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Convictions: Badgers

Answer

The available information is provided in the following tables.Data for 2009 will be available when Sentencing Statistics 2009 is published later this year.The specific date when a sentence was passed cannot be provided as this would allow an individual to be easily identifiable which is contrary to the Ministry's data protection policy. Information has therefore been provided on the month sentence was passed. The total fine payment rate is not available for specific offences, but information has been provided on the number of fines and the total monetary value of fines imposed under the Protection of Badgers Act. The overall estimated fine payment rate for all financial penalties by financial year is shown in the following table:

Financial year	Payment rate—England and Wales (percentage)
2003-04	74
2004-05	80
2005-06	83
2006-07	92
2007-08	95

Data on payment rates prior to April 2003 is not calculated in a comparable manner.

Number of persons proceeded against at magistrates courts and found guilty and sentenced to immediate custody at all courts for selected offences, England and Wales, 2007 and 2008¹,²,³
		2007	2008³
Statute	Offence description	Proceeded against	Found guilty	Immediate custody	Proceeded against	Found guilty	Immediate custody
Badgers Act 1973 as amended by Criminal Justice Act 1991 S.26 and Badgers Act 1991 S.1	Offences of cruelty to badgers and special protection for badgers and their setts	20	6	41	22	11	52
Badgers (further protection) Act 1991	Failing to give up a dog for destruction or having custody of a dog while disqualified	10	5	0	14	11	0
¹ The figures given relate to persons for whom these offences were the principal offences for which they were dealt with. When a defendant has been found guilty of two or more offences it is the offence for which the heaviest penalty is imposed. Where the same disposal is imposed for two or more offences, the offence selected is the offence for which the statutory maximum penalty is the most severe.
² Every effort is made to ensure that the figures presented are accurate and complete. However, it is important to note that these data have been extracted from large administrative data systems generated by the courts and police forces. As a consequence, care should be taken to ensure data collection processes and their inevitable limitations are taken into account when those data are used.
³ Excludes data for Cardiff magistrates court for April, July and August 2008.
4 An immediate custodial sentence of four months passed in June.
5 One sentence of six months passed in March, one sentence of one month passed in December.
Source:
Justice Statistics Analytical Services in the Ministry of Justice

Number of fines and monetary value of fines imposed under the Protection of Badgers Act 1992, 1992 to 2008
	1992	1993	1994	1995	1996	1997	1998	1999
Number of fines issued	31	23	15	18	8	6	10	14
Value of fines imposed (£)¹	5,500	5,425	3,760	7,250	2,000	2,100	2,215	580

	2000	2001	2002	2003	2004	2005	2006	2007	2008
Number of fines issued	14	31	22	13	9	9	4	4	13
Value of fines imposed (£)¹	1,415	2,185	1,285	4,960	860	2,510	275	310	3,015
¹ Due to changes in the way these figures have been extracted they may show small differences to previously released figures.
Notes:
1. These figures have been drawn from administrative data systems. Although care is taken when processing and analysing the returns, the detail collected is subject to the inaccuracies inherent in any large scale recording system.
2. This data has been taken from the Ministry of Justice Court Proceedings database. This data is presented on the principal offence basis. Where an offender has been sentenced for more than one offence the principal offence is the one for which the heaviest sentence was imposed. Where the same sentence has been imposed for two or more offences the principal offence is the one for which the statutory maximum is most severe.
Source:
Justice Statistics—Analytical Services, Ministry of Justice

Secondary information

Type

Written question

Reference

508 c1071-4W; 324634

Session

2009-10

Subjects

Convictions

Legislation

Protection of Badgers Act 1992

Contains statistics

Yes

Link

View this Written question on www.publications.parliament.uk