Attorney General's Reference No. 63 OF 2005

Perjury will prima facie attract immediate imprisonment. That sanction is necessary to protect the integrity of the judicial process. A sentence of community punishment for a serious perjury may therefore be unduly lenient.

Nevertheless, after granting an Attorney General’s reference, the court may decline to increase an unduly lenient sentence where the interests of justice so require. Relevant matters include the age of the offending, the offender’s prospect of custody during the reference, and the additional punitive effect of resentencing.

The offender had given false sworn evidence in care proceedings about the cause of his baby’s bilateral skull fractures. He later admitted that he had shaken the child and explained that he had lacked the courage to tell the truth.

He pleaded guilty to perjury at the first available opportunity and showed considerable remorse. On 23 May 2005, His Honour Judge Price imposed 220 hours’ community punishment. The Attorney General sought leave under section 36 of the Criminal Justice Act 1988 to refer that sentence as unduly lenient.

The issue was whether the sentence should be increased despite the delay since the offence and the consequences of resentencing.

1. The court granted leave to refer the sentence. Perjury ordinarily requires an immediate custodial sentence because the integrity of the judicial process must be preserved.

2. On the facts, a sentence between 18 months’ and two years’ imprisonment would ordinarily have been expected. The community-punishment order was therefore unduly lenient.

3. However, the court declined to interfere. The perjury had been committed in 2000, the offender had not been in custody, and he had lived with the prospect of custody since the reference. Resentencing would also create an element of double jeopardy.

4. In those circumstances, increasing the sentence would not be in the interests of justice. The order of 220 hours’ community punishment remained undisturbed.

• Court of Appeal (Criminal Division): Granted the Attorney General leave to refer the sentence under section 36 of the Criminal Justice Act 1988, held it unduly lenient, but declined to increase it in the interests of justice.
• Sentencing court: His Honour Judge Price imposed 220 hours’ community punishment for perjury on 23 May 2005.