First Group of PartsDiscipline

Part 9Sentencing: Principles and Procedures

Chapter 1Principles and Procedures applying to Service Courts and Summary Hearings

Service detention and custodial sentences
244Limit on combined term of sentences of service detention

(1)A court or officer may not—

(a)pass a sentence of service detention,

(b)make a direction under section 189 (consecutive terms of service detention), or

(c)make an order under section 191 or 193 (activation of suspended sentence of service detention),

whose effect would be that a person would (at the relevant time) be subject to sentences of service detention the combined term of which exceeds two years.

(2)In subsection (1) “the relevant time” is the time immediately after the passing of the sentence or the making of the direction or order.

(3)For the purposes of this section, the combined term of sentences of service detention is—

(a)if none of the sentences overlap, the aggregate of the terms of the sentences;

(b)otherwise, the aggregate of—

(i)the period (or periods) during which any of the sentences overlaps any other of them; and

(ii)the period (or periods) for which none of the sentences overlap.

(4)Where subsection (1) is contravened, any part of any sentence of service detention which would (apart from this subsection) have effect after the end of the permitted period is remitted by virtue of this subsection.

(5)In subsection (4) “permitted period” means the period—

(a)beginning with the date of contravention; and

(b)equal in length to the longest sentence of service detention that could have been passed on that date without contravening subsection (1).

(6)For the purposes of the reference in subsection (4) to a part of a sentence which would have effect after the end of the permitted period, any prospect of early release is to be disregarded.

(7)In subsection (1)(a) “sentence of service detention” does not include a suspended sentence of service detention.