Court of Appeal
| Published date | 01 November 2004 |
| Date | 01 November 2004 |
| DOI | 10.1350/jcla.68.6.466.54141 |
| Subject Matter | Court of Appeal |
Court of Appeal
Discharging Sex Offenders
R v Longworth [2004] EWCA Crim 2145
The appellant pleaded guilty to two counts of making an indecent
photograph or pseudo-photograph of a child contrary to s. 1 of the
Protection of Children Act 1978. The trial judge, Hale J, sentenced the
appellant to concurrent sentences of 12–month conditional discharges.
An issue then arose as to whether the appellant would be subject to the
notification requirements within the meaning of Part 1 of the Sex
Offenders Act 1997. The learned judge considered that the requirement
did exist and the appellant sought to overturn this ruling.
H
ELD
,
DISMISSING THE APPEAL
, the notification requirements of the
1997 Act exist as a result of their statutory position, not through any
order of the court. A judge does not order the notification of an offender,
but the requirement exists as a result of the sentence of the court. That
said, clarity as to these matters would be helpful, and the court ruled on
the appeal.
The court accepted that there had been contradictory opinions from
previous decisions of the court, but after a careful consideration of the
relevant law, the court held that the notification requirements did apply
to those who are given a conditional discharge.
C
OMMENTARY
Perhaps the most astounding aspect of this decision is that it has taken
seven years before the Court of Appeal has decided to try and settle a
dispute. It is quite ironic that this decision to bring clarity to the area is
made two months after the notification regime under the 1997 Act has
been repealed and replaced with a new system found in Part 2 of the
Sexual Offences Act 2003. That said, this does not mean that the
decision is moot because it could still have implications.
The problem arises because there is an apparent conflict between the
1997 legislation and the Powers of Criminal Courts (Sentencing) Act
2000. Section 1(4) of the 1997 Act lists a table which provides the
duration a relevant offender is subject to the notification period for. A
conditional discharge is not listed within this chapter but the last entry
of the table is for a ‘person of any other description’. Prima facie,
therefore, it could be argued that a person who is discharged would be
a ‘person of any other description’ and, accordingly, subject to the
notification requirements. However s. 14 of the 2000 Act, which consol-
idated existing laws relating to discharges, is only a conviction for the
‘purposes of proceedings in which the order is made’ or for proceedings
relating to a breach of a conditional discharge.
The court argues that there have been contradictory opinions before
and states that in R v Malone [2001] 2 Cr App R (S) 43 a discharge did
carry notification requirements, and yet in R v Oliver and Others [2003] 2
466
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