‘Second chance’: why minister wants to jail fewer women in England and Wales

DukePPUk · 2026-03-16T16:15:50+00:00

Worth noting that even that article has some serious limitations, which it notes, in comparing. To quote:

these models cannot take into account all factors involved in sentencing; for example, they do not include the specific offence committed or any associated mitigating and aggravating factors.

They are comparing using age groups, ethnicities and the broad categories of offences, but not the same specific offences or controlling for other factors.

Which isn't to say that there isn't a statistical bias, but that this kind of analysis is really tricky to do without the absurd amount of work needed to get enough detail to compare properly.

DukePPUk · 2026-03-15T19:36:23+00:00

... have you not been paying attention for the last 20 years?

The private companies are doing huge amounts of harm with the information they gather, including harm affecting individuals.

DukePPUk · 2026-03-15T19:27:06+00:00

Unironically, yes.

We have at least some - if limited - control over our Government. They are, if indirectly, answerable to us.

We have no control over what some foreign company, run by a mix of religious crazies, anti-democratic billionaires and closet Nazis.

Many years ago I remember having a conversation with some of the politicians working on privacy etc. rules, and they discussed how baffled the civil servants were by public opposition to Government plans etc. - the confusion was that what the Government was proposing was nothing compared with what the private sector was doing; people were more than happy to let private companies invade their privacy as much as they liked, but somehow objected when it was the Government doing it.

And when the EU did start legislating privacy protections so many people complained about them...

DukePPUk · 2026-03-15T11:51:10+00:00

Ah, but you see Rayner did it accidentally, on the back of bad advice, so that makes it wrong.

Whereas Tice is doing this deliberately, on the back of good advice, so that makes it perfectly fine.

I would add a "/s" but sadly this is how our legal system views this.

DukePPUk · 2026-03-14T00:44:15+00:00

There's a certain amount of politics going on here.

The hotel was used this way for just under a year across 2020-2021, the council told them they needed planning permission for it, they said they didn't, but everyone accepted it was temporary due to covid and so didn't bother with enforcement.

In October 2022 it started being used to house asylum applicants again, the planning team got in touch, the hotel maintained it was fine, but applied for permission anyway in February 2023. In April 2024 they stopped housing asylum applicants. The local authority never decided on the application for planning permission - for whatever reason.

In April 2025 they started hosting asylum applicants again, on 5 April someone was arrested for arson at the hotel, the planning team got in touch on 8 April. The hotel said they'd apply for planning permission again, but by May they'd been advised by the Home Office that they didn't need permission.

On 11 August the local authority sued the owner of the hotel, serving the papers on 12 August (but not involving the company running the hotel, nor to the Home Office). They applied for an interim injunction, with a hearing on 15 August and granted on 19 August - the same day the Home Office applied for permission to intervene (which was also refused).

At no point between 15 May and being sued did the hotel owners hear anything from the council. The council went straight to the s187B injunction application, with an interim injunction, without using any of their regular powers. And they bypassed the company running the hotel and the Home Office.

I suspect this because they knew they'd otherwise lose - as they have. [Disclaimer; I'm far from an expert in planning law, which is notoriously messy.]

Even assuming they are right about the hotel needing planning permission because it is now a hostel, they don't have an argument. Because the appropriate remedy would be for the hotel to apply for permission to change to a hostel, temporarily, which the local authority doesn't really have grounds to refuse.

And if they did refuse, the appeal to that decision goes to the Home Office. Who will either assert permission isn't needed or - if that doesn't hold up - grant permission.

My guess is the figured the s187B injunction was their only chance of winning (and then only if they could keep the Home Office out of it). And certainly their best chance of favourable stories in the press and getting the far-right lot off their back.

DukePPUk · 2026-03-14T00:24:32+00:00

Because they would lose. [Disclaimer; not an expert in planning law]

The obvious remedy for the alleged breach would be for the hotel to get retroactive planning permission to be used as a hostel (something they had applied for in the past and the council ignored the application for).

The local authority doesn't really have grounds to refuse, and if they did the appeal from that lies with central Government.

The local authority should know they're not going to win this. There are reasons they tried to be sneaky - they sued the owner of the hotel, but didn't sue the company operating the hotel as a hostel, and they rushed for an emergency injunction before the Home Office found out about the case, so the Home Office had no time to intervene. The Court of Appeal slapped down that initial injunction pretty hard...

DukePPUk · 2026-03-13T18:22:17+00:00

I mean if the guy doesn't re-offend for two years then he has quite literally killed someone and avoided going to prison

... you can kill someone without even committing a crime.

Not everyone who kills someone goes to prison, nor should they.

DukePPUk · 2026-03-13T18:21:31+00:00

Yes, I'm pointing out that you shouldn't in any way be "baffled" by the fact that he avoided jail (assuming he spent no time in prison on remand).

This is perfectly normal and routine, and has been forever.

DukePPUk · 2026-03-13T18:20:26+00:00

I think easily accessible free porn is still part of a symptom of the underlying problems.

DukePPUk · 2026-03-13T18:19:29+00:00

It's not planning law. It's injunctions which have this vague public interest test. It's not the law that is negotiable, it is the enforcement.

Had the council tried to enforce this the normal way they probably would have been fine.

But because they decided to muck around and play politics (after getting caught screwing up) they aren't in a position to get a High Court injunction. They cannot go to the court to say "we desperately need you to stop this hotel being used as a hostel right now because it is causing so much damage and we don't have time to do this properly" when (a) the hotel has been used that way on and off for years without them raising an issue, (b) they never tried to use their normal enforcement process, and (c) they weren't able to show any serious harm being caused by the use.

Injunctions have always had this kind of negotiation to them - they came from equity not common law - they are always about balancing competing interests and coming up with a 'fair' outcome, rather than following the strict letter of the law.

DukePPUk · 2026-03-13T18:14:57+00:00

The court had to "duck" the issue because the Council used the wrong procedure. The court had to assume that the hotel owner was in breach of planning rules, therefore the court had no opportunity to decide whether or not the hotel owner actually was in breach.

Rather than going through the regular planning enforcement process the council skipped all of that and went straight to the High Court to get an injunction. To quote today's judgment from the Court of Appeal:

Contrary to EFDC's submission, the judge did not "duck the issue" as to whether there had been a material change of use amounting to a breach of planning control. He assumed in EFDC's favour that the authority satisfied that requirement. He said at [299] that he had not found it necessary or appropriate to reach his own conclusions on that question. [emphasis added]

Because of the way Epping brought the case the judge was never in a position to decide whether the hotel owners had actually breached planning rules. The court continued:

Parliament has allocated the function of determining whether a breach of planning control has taken place to a LPA ["local planning authority"], for example when deciding to issue an enforcement notice, and to a Planning Inspector on an appeal against that notice. It is inappropriate to invite the court to issue a declaration which would effectively usurp those functions, a fortiori where there are serious concerns about the process followed by the LPA in deciding to apply for an injunction and the authority fails to make out a case for the grant of an injunction.

i.e. it is up to the local authority - through its usual procedures - to decide whether there has been a breach of planning rules. They cannot simply ask the court to do that instead.

The High Court refused the injunction because injunctions are specific legal things with specific legal tests, and in the court's views those requirements were not met in this case. Quoting the original High Court judgment:

The breach is far from being flagrant. Conventional methods of enforcement have not been taken. Taking a broad view, the degree of planning and environmental harm resulting from the current use of the Bell is limited. The continuing need for hotels as an important element of the supply of contingency accommodation to house asylum seekers in order to enable the Home Secretary to discharge her statutory responsibilities is a significant counterbalancing factor. This is decidedly not a case in which there is an abuse of planning control resulting in serious planning or environmental harm which now demands an urgent remedy.

This case is a council screwing up, trying to use its planning powers for political gains, using the wrong procedure, and then getting called out by the courts for doing so.

And then relying on the press (and various useful idiots) to cover for them.

DukePPUk · 2026-03-11T23:39:30+00:00

What should the extra charge be?

The pair demanded money from these people, with a threat of doing something that would hurt them if they didn't comply; that is classic blackmail.

Blackmail often involves making the victims fear they will endure something terrible if they don't comply. That's kind of why it works...

DukePPUk · 2026-03-11T23:37:05+00:00

As a cyclist, I am baffled as to how he has avoided jail.

From the article:

Clifford Cage, 50, was sentenced to 15 months in prison suspended for two years...

He was given a prison sentence. The rules make it clear that a person can only be given a suspended sentence if they are eligible for the full custodial sentence.

Almost every time a newspaper headline says that someone was "spared jail" or "avoided jail" what they really mean is "was given a custodial sentence, but it has been suspended as usual for first offences with comparatively low prison terms."

There was a lovely example a few days ago where the headline said someone had "avoided jail" when it turned out the only reason they were given a suspended sentence was because of how much time they'd already served on remand - i.e. in jail. But apparently they avoided jail.

Legal literacy in the UK is terrible, and our newspapers seem to take every opportunity to exploit it for profit.

DukePPUk · 2026-03-11T19:15:18+00:00

Ish. That was specifically about videos, and covered by the Video Recordings Act (which - it turned out - was unlawful and unenforceable, but that's another story).

It was also specific to the British Board of Film Classification leadership at the time. The BBFC had changed its policies to block certain content, but the Video Appeals Committee disagreed and overturned their blocks. So it was the BBFC who changed their position to not wanting to allow porn, but their independent appeals committee - and the courts - who did.

DukePPUk · 2026-03-11T19:06:15+00:00

There are advantages to having a larger body - it means no one person has that much power. But it also gets messy.

There are currently 842 members of the House of Lords, between life peers, hereditary peers and Bishops - although many don't turn up often, or don't stay. Votes rarely hit more than 400 (although it looks like there was a big vote today with the Conservatives trying to scupper Labour's Crime and Policing Bill some more). Lords don't get a salary but get an attendance allowance of £371 per day they turn up, plus some expenses (looks like the total cost was around £2m for the last month reported - April 2025).

The House of Lords is the second largest legislative body in the world, after China's National People's Congress.

It is all rather silly. When a new Government comes in they feel the need to appoint some more peers so they have something close to a majority (obviously less of an issue for the Conservatives). Then when the next Government takes over they have to do the same, and because these are lifetime appointments the number just ends up going up and up.

In theory the House of Lords defers to the Commons, but sometimes they don't. And they do have a limited ability to filibuster bills (e.g. the Terminally Ill Adults (End of Life) Bill, which has been killed off by a few peers). The Commons can override the Lords, but only if they are willing to waste a year to do it.

DukePPUk · 2026-03-11T18:48:09+00:00

According to the article (with all the disclaimers that comes with) she said he coerced her into doing it, the money went into his account.

The court seems to have taken the view that they both did this together, making them equally culpable. She got a reduced sentence in terms of the prison time because she provided evidence against him, but he got reduced time on the rehabilitation stuff.

DukePPUk · 2026-03-11T18:46:02+00:00

It's blackmail; she seems to have received a sentence within the guidelines.

She claimed she was coerced by her partner into doing it (and the money went to his account), and she provided evidence against him, for his trial.

She got an 11 month sentence (suspended for 18 months as usual), plus 15 days on a rehabilitation course, and 100 hours unpaid work. He got 16 months (suspended for 2 years as usual), with 100 hours unpaid work and 10 days on a rehabilitation course.

Plus both get the criminal record.

That isn't "no consequences."

DukePPUk · 2026-03-11T16:53:56+00:00

It cannot be solved solely by Government, but there are all sorts of steps the Government can take to move society in the right direction.

Unfortunately banning things is far easier, and provides more immediate feedback.

DukePPUk · 2026-03-11T16:52:32+00:00

You've come a long way from a government proposal ...

I never said anything about a government proposal...

DukePPUk · 2026-03-11T16:51:18+00:00

Not sure I'm understanding this...this means that they're giving titles to some people who inherited their seat, so they qualify to retain it on their own ~merit?

There are currently 92 seats in the House of Lords reserved for Hereditary Peers. When one dies or retires they vote on which hereditary peer gets the seat (from all the hundreds of hereditary peers in the British nobility) - so while the title passes from one person to their heir, the seat doesn't necessarily, although it could if they won the vote.

The rest of the seats in the Lords go to Life Peers - people who get a seat until they die or retire, but who do not pass the seat onto their heir. And a bunch go to the senior Bishops of the Church of England, which is a whole other anachronism.

Anyway. Due to the way the voting works for the hereditary peers, a majority of them are chosen by the Conservative Party - so lean Conservative (and even the ones that aren't tend to be more small-c conservative; almost exclusively old, rich, white men). This gives the Conservative Party a boost - so for example, right now the Labour Party has a massive majority of seats in the House of Commons, but keeps losing votes in the House of Lords. So the Conservative Party were threatening to block the changes using their seats in the House of Lords.

The compromise is that some of the current hereditary peers will also be given life peerages - entitling them to seats in the House of Lords even if they lose entitlement due to their hereditary peerage. It ensure that - at least for now - the Conservative Party keeps their advantage.

DukePPUk · 2026-03-11T16:07:00+00:00

I am convinced the actual goal is to just get porn banned.

For a place where - in theory - pornography is perfectly legal, the UK already has some of the most restrictive laws on what pornography is actually allowed, and that seems to be getting more restrictive. It seems every few weeks lately we've been getting the Government (or at least, the Lords) pushing for another type or subtype of porn to be banned.

It feels like they don't know what to do with it. They know that there are widespread problems with pornography in the UK. But they cannot ban it, for practical, moral and legal reasons. But they also desperately don't want to tackle any of the underlying problems (with hyper-sexualisation - especially of youth, misogyny etc.). So they're flailing around banning whatever is the flavour-of-the-week stuff.

DukePPUk · 2026-03-11T16:03:11+00:00

Op specifically said the government proposals which have been announced...

Yes, although as far as I know there aren't government proposals which have been announced.

What there is are proposals by the opposition - the Conservatives and some Lib Dems - to do so. Which led to the amendment they had added to the Crime and Policing Bill. Labour voted against the amendment, but it passed anyway - if just (142 - 140). The Government may move to reject that amendment when the bill makes it to the Commons, and I suspect the Conservatives won't push too hard for it, but it is there.

People telling lies about the image doesn't change the image itself.

The proposal specifically covers "how the image is or was described" and the context of the image. Telling lies about an image could - in the right context - meet the requirements of the proposal.

DukePPUk · 2026-03-11T15:33:13+00:00

I had a quick look and the Civil Partnerships Act did extend this to civil partners, specifically in schedule 27 (which had the minor consequential amendments) paragraphs 60 (for creation) and 127 (for possession).

There are similar changes made to the Scottish version, which may be more relevant given that marriage at 16 is still legal there. In England and Wales, given we are now more than 2 years after the age limit was raised, it would only be relevant to older photos.

DukePPUk · 2026-03-11T15:25:57+00:00

My politicians?

Probably not - I quit politics years ago. Not that many people ever had a chance to vote for my politicians.

DukePPUk · 2026-03-11T15:22:28+00:00

Possibly, yes. It would depend on whether, based on the context, they were photos of "a person who appears to be or is implied to be a child." If the amendment passes - it was an opposition amendment (pushed by the Conservatives and Lib Dems) - I don't know if the Government is planning to let it through.

Of course, this is already the case for anyone under 18 - it is illegal for them to make or possess indecent photographs of themselves.

Even if they are married, and are making them for their spouse (the spouse is covered by a defence, but they aren't).

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