Member

The Bill currently says that if the court is of the opinion that making the order would put a particular individual at significant risk of physical or psychological harm, the presumption in favour of a suspended sentence would not apply. My amendments 33 and 37 would take that a stage further to include the public. Why not any individual as opposed to a particular individual? Amendments 34 and 38 would also take out the word “significant” so that any risk would be covered. If the court believed there is a risk to an identifiable person or an identifiable member of the public, they should be protected by ensuring that the person causing the potential risk to them is locked up. That does not seem like rocket science to me. It would be completely wrong to do anything other than protect those people from all kinds of unnecessary risk.