Criminal Law Act 1967

7 Powers of dealing with offenders.

(1) Where a person is convicted on indictment of an offence against any enactment and is for that offence liable to be sentenced to imprisonment, but the sentence is not by any enactment either limited to a specified term or expressed to extend to imprisonment for life, the person so convicted shall be liable to imprisonment for not more than two years.

(2) A person convicted on indictment of an attempt to commit an offence for which a maximum term of imprisonment or a maximum fine is provided by any enactment shall not be sentenced to imprisonment for a term longer, nor to a fine larger, than that to which he could be sentenced for the completed offence.

(3) Where a person is convicted on indictment of any offence other than an offence for which the sentence is fixed by law, the court, if not precluded from sentencing the offender by its exercise of some other power (such as the power to make a probation order), may impose a fine in lieu of or in addition to dealing with him in any other way in which the court has power to deal with him, subject however to any enactment limiting the amount of the fine that may be imposed or requiring the offender to be dealt with in a particular way.

(4) Notwithstanding anything in any enactment whereby power is conferred on a court, on a person's conviction of an offence, to bind him over to keep the peace or be of good behaviour, that power may be exercised without sentencing the person convicted to a fine or to imprisonment.

(5) There is hereby abolished so much of the punishment for any offence as consists in any general forfeiture of lands or of goods and chattels or in being placed outside Her Majesty's protection or otherwise incapacitated to sue or be sued.