Crime and Policing Act 2026

Prospective

227 Offence of breaching youth diversion order U.K.

(1) A person who, without reasonable excuse, fails to comply with a youth diversion order commits an offence.

(2) Where a youth diversion order requires a person to provide information or produce a document, it is an offence for the person, in purported compliance with that requirement, to provide any information or produce any document which the person knows to be false.

(3) Where a youth diversion order requires a person to comply with section 218 (notification requirements), it is an offence for the person—

(a) to fail, without reasonable excuse, to comply with that section, or

(b) in purported compliance with that section, to notify to the police any information which the person knows to be false.

(4) A person who commits an offence under this section is liable—

(a) on summary conviction in England and Wales, to imprisonment for a term not exceeding the general limit in a magistrates’ court or a fine (or both);

(b) on summary conviction in Scotland, to imprisonment for a term not exceeding 12 months or a fine not exceeding the statutory maximum (or both);

(c) on summary conviction in Northern Ireland, to imprisonment for a term not exceeding 6 months or a fine not exceeding the statutory maximum (or both);

(d) on conviction on indictment, to imprisonment for a term not exceeding two years or a fine (or both).

(5) Where a person is convicted of an offence under this section, it is not open to the court by or before which the person is convicted to make, in respect of the offence, an order for conditional discharge.

(6) A person commits an offence under subsection (3)(a) on the day on which the person first fails, without reasonable excuse, to comply with section 218.

(7) The person continues to commit the offence throughout any period during which the failure continues.

(8) But the person may not be prosecuted more than once in respect of the same failure.

(9) In proceedings for an offence under this section, a copy of the original youth diversion order, certified by the proper officer of the court that made it, is admissible as evidence of its having been made and of its contents to the same extent that oral evidence of those matters is admissible in those proceedings.

(10) In section 80(3) of the Sentencing Code (list of circumstances where an order for conditional discharge is not available), after paragraph (g) (inserted by section 59(6) of this Act) insert—

“(h) section 227(5) of that Act (breach of youth diversion order).”

Commencement Information

I1 S. 227 not in force at Royal Assent, see s. 255(1)