Perpetrators of sexual violence and other criminals who\u2019ve evaded the criminal justice system for years, or even decades, will now face the prospect of tougher sentencing from NSW courts, which will no longer be bound by outdated sentencing practices.
\nAttorney General and Minister for Prevention of Domestic and Sexual Violence Mark Speakman said the Government was drafting a bill that would require courts to apply current sentencing practices to all crimes, regardless of when they were committed.
\n\u201cRight now, except for child sexual abuse, courts must apply sentencing patterns and practices related to the offence that were in place at the time the offence was committed, instead of at the time of sentencing,\u201d Mr Speakman said.
\n\u201cBut sometimes those guideposts don\u2019t reflect our community\u2019s current stance on crimes \u2013 this is especially so for heinous acts like sexual assault or domestic violence.
\n\u201cAsking courts to put themselves in the shoes of a judge years or decades earlier can be impractical, inefficient and produce inconsistent outcomes. Our bill will change this so people who committed offences years ago will be sentenced according to current practices.
\n\u201cIt\u2019s unacceptable for an offender to get more lenient treatment, just because they\u2019d dodged police detection, or their offence had not yet been reported by an often traumatised victim.
\n\u201cWhile courts will still be guided by the maximum penalty and any standard non-parole period that existed at the time of the offence, historical offenders will now face the prospect of tougher penalties, particularly for crimes like sexual assault that are often reported later.\u201d
\nThe proposed reform comes after a NSW Government review of historical sentencing practices, which engaged legal experts, victims\u2019 rights groups and law enforcement.
\nThe move also follows 2018 legislation that ensures child sex offenders are sentenced according to contemporary practices. The 2018 Act came after the Royal Commission into Institutional Responses to Child Sexual Abuse recommended legislation to ensure sentences for child sexual abuse are imposed according to practices that exist at the time of sentencing.
\n\u201cThis applies consistency to all offending so we won\u2019t perpetuate any past errors by using old practices, which don\u2019t align with contemporary attitudes or our current understanding of serious crimes like sexual assault and domestic violence,\u201d Mr Speakman said.
\nKey stakeholders will be consulted on a draft exposure bill this year. Feedback will then be considered and a final bill will be introduced to NSW Parliament in 2022.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Perpetrators of sexual violence and other criminals who\u2019ve evaded the criminal justice system for years, or even decades, will now face the prospect of tougher sentencing from NSW courts, which will no longer be bound by outdated sentencing practices. Attorney General and Minister for Prevention of Domestic and Sexual Violence Mark Speakman said the Government … Continue reading “Historical offences to face modern justice”<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[4],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-13934","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-nswnews"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.16news.com.au\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/13934","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.16news.com.au\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.16news.com.au\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.16news.com.au\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.16news.com.au\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=13934"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"http:\/\/www.16news.com.au\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/13934\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.16news.com.au\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=13934"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.16news.com.au\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=13934"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.16news.com.au\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=13934"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}