Pre cons organisations

Effective from: 01 April 2023

Care should be taken to avoid double counting factors including those already taken into account in assessing culpability or harm or those inherent in the offence

Guidance on the use of previous convictions

The following guidance should be considered when seeking to determine the degree to which previous convictions should aggravate sentence:

1. Previous convictions are considered only after the starting point for the sentence has been reached.
2. The primary significance of previous convictions (including convictions in other jurisdictions) is the extent to which they indicate trends in offending behaviour and possibly the offender’s response to earlier sentences.
3. For sentencing purposes, previous convictions are normally relevant to the current offence when they are of a similar type.
4. Previous convictions of a type different from the current offence may be relevant where they are an indication of persistent offending or escalation and/or a failure to comply with previous court orders.
5. Where information is available on the context of previous offending this may assist the court in assessing the relevance of that prior offending to the current offence.
6. When considering the number and frequency of previous convictions it may be relevant to consider the size of the offending organisation. For example, a large organisation with multiple sites may be more likely to have previous convictions than a smaller organisation with only one site.
7. The aggravating effect of relevant previous convictions reduces with the passage of time; older convictions are less relevant to the offender’s culpability for the current offence and less likely to be predictive of future offending.
8. Where the previous offence is particularly old it will normally have little relevance for the current sentencing exercise.
9. The court should consider the time gap since the previous conviction and the reason for it. Where there has been a significant gap between previous and current convictions or a reduction in the frequency of offending this may indicate that the offender has made attempts to desist from offending in which case the aggravating effect of the previous offending will diminish.
10. Where the current offence is significantly less serious than the previous conviction (suggesting a decline in the gravity of offending), the previous conviction may carry less weight.
11. When considering the totality of previous offending a court should take a rounded view of the previous crimes and not simply aggregate the individual offences.