Sexual Offences Act 2003

Sexual Offences Act 2003

2003 CHAPTER 42

Commentary on Sections

Part 2: Notification and Orders

Section 82: The notification period

154. Section 82 sets out the period during which a relevant offender will be subject to the notification requirements. In the most serious cases, as reflected in the sentence passed for the offence, the person will be subject to the requirements for an indefinite period, which means the rest of his life. In less serious cases, the offender will be subject to the requirements for a fixed period. For example, where after commencement a person is cautioned for a relevant offence, the notification period is two years.

155. The notification period starts from the date of conviction, finding or caution. This is called the ‘relevant date’ (subsection (6)). The ‘relevant date’ in relation to offences in Schedule 3 that are subject to sentence thresholds is set out in section 132.

156. Subsection (2) provides that, where an adult would be subject to the notification requirements for a determinate period (that is ten, seven, five or two years), that period will be halved in the case of an offender who is under 18 on the relevant date (that is, the date of conviction, relevant finding or reprimand or final warning).

157. Subsections (3) and (4) set out how to calculate the notification period where an offender is sentenced for more than one Schedule 3 offence and these sentences are terms of imprisonment running consecutively or partly concurrently. Where the terms are consecutive, they are to be added together. For example, where an offender is sentenced to 3 months’ imprisonment for one relevant offence and 10 months’ imprisonment for another such offence, to run consecutively, the sentence would be treated as 13 months’ imprisonment for the purposes of working out the notification period (in this case, 10 years). Terms will be partly concurrent when they are imposed on different occasions. An example would be where an offender is sentenced to 10 years’ imprisonment for a Schedule 3 offence, and 6 years into this term he is sentenced to 12 years’ imprisonment for a second Schedule 3 offence. Where this is the case, the notification period is based on the combined length of the terms minus any overlapping period. In the example given, the combined length of the sentences would be 22 years and the overlapping period would be the remaining 4 years of the 10-year sentence. So the sentence for the purposes of working out the notification period would be 18 years.

158. Subsection (5) relates to the situation where there is an initial finding that a person is under a disability and has done the act charged and he is later tried for the offence. An example would be where such a finding was made, the person was admitted to hospital under a restriction order and the notification requirements would therefore apply for an indefinite period. Where such a person was subsequently tried for the offence, the indefinite notification period will cease to apply as from the end of the trial. If the person is convicted and sentenced to, say, 12 months’ imprisonment for the offence, the new notification period would be 10 years, starting from the date of the conviction. If the person is acquitted at trial, the person ceases to be subject to the notification requirements in respect of that matter.