---

Criminal Justice and Immigration Bill

What we say here, as I understand it—if I am wrong, I will be corrected—is that a community sentence becomes, as it were, available if someone commits three separate offences and is fined three times. However, just because that person becomes liable for a community sentence does not mean that they necessarily receive one. The Sentencing Guidelines Council guidelines published in December 2004, New Sentences: Criminal Justice Act 2003, which cover the imposition of community orders, say: "““Sentencers must consider all of the disposals available (within or below the threshold passed) at the time of sentence, and reject them before reaching a provisional decision to make a community sentence, so that even where the threshold for a community sentence has been passed a financial penalty or discharge may still be an appropriate penalty””." If those sentencing guidelines are followed, the magistrates may decide that the offender merits a community sentence but may still decide to fine him or discharge him. In other words, their discretion is not fettered.