Councillor in firearm charge

[Laurie]

Gaz is correct in that the 'minium tariff' is five years as set out in the sentencing guidelines issued to judges. This is more than an administrative issue too as Parliament set it as a legal minimum some years back. However, judges always have discretion, and most are extremely unwilling to send a basically honest and upstanding citizen to prison for five years for no good reason in terms of protecting the community in such cases. On the other hand, the judge has to take into account both Parliament's wishes, and public concern over illegally held firearms, so a custodial sentence of some sort is pretty well guaranteed nowadays, and more likely to be a year or more than a matter of a few months.

A friend did a year 'inside' for this, almost exactly identical circumstances coincidentally, some years back. He lived and worked abroad for some time owning a business there and brought a 'presentation' boxed PPK back given to him as a gift by friends when he returned to the UK, holding it off ticket and then as an illegal S5 after Dunblane. During an acrimonious divorce, his about to be ex-wife reported him to the police. His defence counsel and everybody else didn't expect a custodial sentence as there was far less pressure on judges over such cases at the time, but the judge decided to 'make an example of him' and gave him a year or 18 months, I can't remember which. He spent nearly all of it in an 'open prison' in a group of middle aged white collar criminals.

[joe]

Gaz is correct in that the 'minium tariff' is five years as set out in the sentencing guidelines issued to judges. This is more than an administrative issue too as Parliament set it as a legal minimum some years back. However, judges always have discretion, and most are extremely unwilling to send a basically honest and upstanding citizen to prison for five years for no good reason in terms of protecting the community in such cases. On the other hand, the judge has to take into account both Parliament's wishes, and public concern over illegally held firearms, so a custodial sentence of some sort is pretty well guaranteed nowadays, and more likely to be a year or more than a matter of a few months.

A friend did a year 'inside' for this, almost exactly identical circumstances coincidentally, some years back. He lived and worked abroad for some time owning a business there and brought a 'presentation' boxed PPK back given to him as a gift by friends when he returned to the UK, holding it off ticket and then as an illegal S5 after Dunblane. During an acrimonious divorce, his about to be ex-wife reported him to the police. His defence counsel and everybody else didn't expect a custodial sentence as there was far less pressure on judges over such cases at the time, but the judge decided to 'make an example of him' and gave him a year or 18 months, I can't remember which. He spent nearly all of it in an 'open prison' in a group of middle aged white collar criminals.

you mean taking into account the concerns of the sheeple !

[Chuck]

Those with no previous generally (and generally law abiding) get screwed whereas scrotes seem to fare better - or so it seems.

[Blackstuff]

Scrotes that get a lighter sentence generally have 'intel' on bigger scrotes higher up the food chain and can use it as a bargaining chip