France Farrell sentence to lenient.

The Law Officers (the Attorney General and Solicitor General) have the power, under section 36 of the Criminal Justice Act 1988, to refer to the Court of Appeal certain sentences passed in the Crown Court which appear to them to be unduly lenient. The power to refer sentences to the Court of Appeal is subject to strict limitations and must be exercised within 28 days of sentence. The time limit is set out in legislation and cannot be extended. In this particular case, the offender was sentenced on the 11 December 2012 and the time limit expired on 8 January 2013.

It is therefore no longer possible for the Law Officers to consider this sentence for review.

This case was, however, brought to our attention as a potential unduly lenient sentence before the time limit expired. The Solicitor General, having carefully reviewed the case, decided that the sentence was not unduly lenient.

Full details on the unduly lenient scheme can be found on our website: https://www.gov.uk/complain-about-low-crown-court-sentence