Youth sentencing principles and the robbery method

Sentence the offence and this child. The principal aim of the youth justice system is prevention of offending; the court must also have regard to welfare. Children’s maturity, understanding, susceptibility to pressure and capacity to change differ from adults’. Assess culpability, meaning the child’s blameworthiness, as well as harm. Consider education, care history, mental health, exploitation, family circumstances and the effects of the proposed intervention. A need for support does not itself justify a more severe penal sentence. Sources: Judicial College — Child Defendants in the Crown Court, June 2025, Sentencing Council — Sentencing Children and Young People, Sentencing Act 2020 (Sentencing Code) — base provisions with amendments separately identified

The court must follow relevant sentencing guidelines unless that would be contrary to the interests of justice. The Sentencing Children and Young People overarching guideline and the Robbery — Sentencing Children and Young People guideline have been effective since 1 June 2017. Use them together: the first supplies the child-centred principles; the second gives an offence-specific method. Neither is an adult sentencing grid with an automatic percentage deducted. Sources: Sentencing Council — Sentencing Children and Young People, Sentencing Act 2020 (Sentencing Code) — base provisions with amendments separately identified, Sentencing Council — Robbery: Sentencing Children and Young People

The robbery method has five core sentence-selection steps, followed by an ancillary-order stage. First assess the nature of the offence: the child’s role, force, weapon use and harm. Minimal force, little harm or exploitation may point towards a non-custodial disposal; very significant force, a produced weapon or serious harm may cross the custody/ISS/fostering threshold. Second weigh additional offence aggravation and mitigation without counting the same feature twice. Third assess the child’s personal mitigation, which may move the case back below a threshold. Fourth apply guilty-plea credit. Fifth review whether the resulting sentence is appropriate, taking account of reoffending and serious-harm concerns. Crossing a threshold does not itself compel that disposal. Sources: Sentencing Council — Robbery: Sentencing Children and Young People

Step 6: ancillary orders. Check each additional order's own power. A parenting order places preventive requirements on a parent or guardian, normally including counselling or guidance. Where it is available and the child was under 16 at conviction, the court must make one if satisfied it would help prevent further offending, or explain in open court why it is not so satisfied; that duty does not apply where a referral order is made. For a child convicted at 16 or 17, the order is discretionary on the same prevention test. Check notified local arrangements. Before making an order for an under-16 offender, obtain and consider family-circumstances information and the likely effect of the order; a parenting order alongside a referral order also requires the section 367 report. Explain the proposed requirements and breach consequences to the parent. Authorities: Robbery—Sentencing Children and Young People, Step 6; Sentencing Code, ss.365–367, 370 and 372.

Use reports before committing to a sentence. For an under-18 offender, where the Code’s pre-sentence-report requirement applies, the court must obtain and consider a report unless a previous report exists and, having considered its information and the circumstances, a new one is unnecessary. The adult’s wider “unnecessary” exception is not the child’s test. The required report must be written for the specified custody-threshold, custodial-term and dangerousness decisions under Code, section 31(5). Check the report’s proposed intervention, feasibility and factual basis; invite correction of any material error. Sources: Sentencing Act 2020 (Sentencing Code) — base provisions with amendments separately identified

Guilty-plea credit remains a separate step. The ordinary reduction is one-third for an indication at the first stage; after that the maximum is ordinarily one-quarter, decreasing to one-tenth on the first day of trial and potentially to zero later. Where particular circumstances significantly reduced this child’s ability to understand the allegation or made an earlier indication unreasonable, the guideline preserves a one-third reduction. Necessary advice to understand guilt is different from waiting to see whether the prosecution has a strong case. Referral orders and mandatory minimum sentences have specific qualifications; do not apply the ordinary fraction blindly. Sources: Sentencing Council — Sentencing Children and Young People

Resolve facts that change sentence. A guilty plea does not authorise the court to sentence on a disputed, materially more serious version without resolving it. Record any proposed basis of plea and identify whether the disputed fact affects sentence. The adult-sentencing chapter supplies the canonical Newton-hearing method, which is also relevant here. The youth guideline separately addresses the effect on plea credit of a rejected account at such a hearing. This chapter does not replace that shared procedural teaching. Sources: Sentencing Council — Sentencing Children and Young People, Sentencing Act 2020 (Sentencing Code) — base provisions with amendments separately identified

Custody is a last resort. The offence or associated offending must be so serious that a fine or community sentence cannot be justified, and custody must be appropriate after considering the child and alternatives. If imposed, the term must be the shortest commensurate with the seriousness of the offending, subject to any applicable mandatory rules. Explain why a community option, including a lawful intensive YRO, is insufficient. Consider totality across all offences and orders: the overall result must be proportionate, not simply the sum of separate starting points. Sources: Sentencing Council — Sentencing Children and Young People, Sentencing Act 2020 (Sentencing Code) — base provisions with amendments separately identified