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Criminal Justice and Courts Act 2015

Section 32: Sending letters etc with intent to cause distress or anxiety

329.This section amends section 1 of the Malicious Communications Act 1988 (“the 1988 Act”) which makes it an offence to send certain articles with intent to cause distress or anxiety. Subsection (1) substitutes new subsection (4) of the 1988 Act which will allow prosecutions for this offence to be dealt with either in the magistrates’ court, or in the Crown Court.

330.New subsection (4)(a) provides that the new maximum penalty for the offence when tried on indictment is two years’ imprisonment, or a fine, or both. New subsection (4)(b) provides that the penalty on summary conviction is a term of imprisonment not exceeding 12 months or a fine or both. However new subsections (5) and (6) (also inserted by subsection (1)) contain transitional provisions which provide, respectively for that reference to 12 months to be read as a reference to 6 months until section 154(1) of the Criminal Justice Act 2003 comes into force and for the reference to a fine to be read as a fine not exceeding the statutory maximum until section 85 of the Legal Aid, Sentencing and Punishment of Offenders Act 2012 comes into force.

331.Subsection (2) makes it clear that the changes to section 1 of the 1988 Act only apply to offences committed on or after the day on which section 32 comes into force

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