Psamathe wrote: ... However, the offences that the scheme covers are "limited" and would probably exclude most of the "lenient sentences" discussed on this forum. ...
Some useful links in there, but I think you are drawing the wrong conclusion. The most obvious point is that causing death by dangerous driving (S 1 Road Traffic Act 1988) is triable only on indictment and so comes within the scheme.
http://www.legislation.gov.uk/ukpga/1988/53/schedule/2Unfortunately, my link, to the Road Traffic Offenders Act 1988 Schedule 2 Part I, which has a table setting out mode of trial appears not to have been fully updated to take account of the amendments to the Road Traffic Act 1988 in respect of the various other causing death by driving offences. (I can only find Causing death by careless driving while under the influence contrary to s 3A of the RTA 1988. ie no mention of the offences under s 2B causing death by careless driving or 2ZB causing death by driving when unlicensed, disqualified or uninsured.)
As an aside and with regard to my comments about the political nature of this, it's interesting the see the list of sexual offences which have been included by statutory instrument in this scheme. That's not intended to detract from the seriousness of those offences, just a comment about how they come to be included.
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PS. I realised very early in my career that there's little point getting hot under the collar about sentencing. In most of the discussions about it on here I've tried to point to things like sentencing guidelines which explain what's happened. One issue that repeatedly gets up my nose, however, is the frequency of discounts for "remorse" when no remorse has been shown before the speech in mitigation. There was one appalling (IMO) case where a defendant who had pleaded not guilty was given a non-custodial sentence partly in recognition of his "remorse." On reflection, I now wish that I'd complained about this at that time, rather than hammering on about it ever since. While searching for the original thread in the below link, I found a later post where I said that the AG should have been straight to the appeal court. I now realise I should have pointed him/her in the right direction, although there's no reason to suppose they would have listened.
viewtopic.php?f=7&t=60597&hilit=remorse
