Serious Crime Act 2007

Serious Crime Act 2007

2007 CHAPTER 27

Commentary on Sections

Part 1: Serious Crime Prevention Orders.General

Section 4: Involvement in serious crime: supplementary

24. Subsection (1) states that the court, when it is considering whether a person has committed a serious offence, must only decide that he has done so if he has been convicted of the offence and that conviction has not been quashed on appeal nor has he been pardoned of the offence.

25. Subsection (2) provides that, when considering whether the proposed subject of the order (“the respondent”) facilitates the commission by another person of a serious offence, the court must ignore any act that the respondent can show to be reasonable in the circumstances. Subsection (3) similarly provides for such an act to be ignored when considering whether the respondent conducts himself in a way that is likely to facilitate the commission by himself or another of a serious offence. Subject to this, the court must ignore the intentions and other aspects of the mental state of the respondent at the time of the act in question. This means that it does not matter if the respondent did not, for example, intend to facilitate the commission of a serious offence, or had no knowledge that he was conducting himself in a way that was likely to facilitate serious crime.

26. Subsection (4) provides the Secretary of State the power to amend Schedule 1 by order.