The bill adds multiple, concrete changes to court procedure and victims’ entitlements. It lets the Crown Court—and service courts—order offenders held in custody to be brought to sentencing hearings, makes non-attendance or disruptive behaviour a contempt that can attract 'prison sanctions orders', and allows authorised officers to use reasonable force (with special safeguards for under‑18s).
Separately, the bill obliges the Crown Court to make prohibited steps orders removing parental responsibility where an offender with parental responsibility is convicted of certain serious sexual offences against a child or where a child was conceived by rape. The measure also tightens victims’ practical rights: free access to specified court transcripts within 14 days, online publication of sentencing remarks on request (subject to victim anonymity), expanded duties on probation providers to share release/discharge information with victims, and new reporting and disclosure rules for victims and the Victims’ Commissioner.
These are operationally significant: courts, prisons, probation providers and local authorities pick up new, time‑sensitive duties that will require process, recordkeeping and likely additional resources.
At a Glance
What It Does
Gives courts a statutory power to order detained offenders to attend sentencing and to treat refusal or disruption as contempt; creates a regulatory route for governors’ style sanctions to be applied as 'prison sanctions orders'. Mandates Crown Court prohibited‑steps orders in specified child sexual cases and creates multiple new victims’ entitlements (transcripts, publication of sentencing remarks, and expanded information from probation providers).
Who It Affects
Crown Court and service courts; prison and young offender institution staff and, in service cases, authorised military police; providers of probation services and local authorities; victims and close family members of serious‑crime victims (including British nationals bereaved abroad); HM Courts & Tribunals Service for publication and transcript delivery; and the Ministry of Justice and Secretary of State for making consequential regulations.
Why It Matters
The bill reshapes procedural levers used to protect victims and families at sentencing, transfers several operational responsibilities to probation providers, and embeds quick timelines (mostly 14 days) for victim access to material. That combination creates immediate compliance obligations for justice agencies and front‑line operational impacts in prisons, courts and probation services.
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What This Bill Actually Does
The bill creates a clear statutory route for courts to ensure that offenders who are in custody and refuse—or are likely to refuse—to attend their sentencing hearing are brought to court. The Crown Court may make an attendance order either on its own initiative or at the prosecutor’s request; for those aged 18 or over, authorised prison or institution officers may use reasonable force, but the court must consult the youth offending team before ordering attendance of under‑18s.
Failure without reasonable excuse to obey an attendance order is defined as contempt of court and triggers the contempt machinery.
Where contempt occurs because an offender fails to attend or disrupts the hearing and is sentenced to imprisonment (or committed for the contempt), the court can impose a 'prison sanctions order'. The bill confines the content of those sanctions to punishments that governors can already impose under prison rules; regulations will specify which sanctions and their maximum durations, and those regulations require affirmative parliamentary approval.
Special placement rules protect offenders aged 18–20: a prison sanctions order can only send them to a prison or an exclusively 18–20 young offender institution.On parental responsibility, the Crown Court must make a prohibited steps order for any offender who has parental responsibility when sentenced to a life term or four years or more for a serious sexual offence against a child (the bill inserts a Schedule listing those offences). The court must also make such an order where it is satisfied a child was conceived as a result of rape.
These orders prevent the offender from exercising parental responsibilities without High Court or family court consent; the bill sets out review paths by local authorities if convictions are overturned or sentences reduced.The victims’ framework is expanded in multiple ways. Victims gain a free, 14‑day entitlement to court transcripts for the Route to Verdict and bail decisions relevant to their case.
On request, courts must publish sentencing remarks online within 14 days, but must first tell victims they can seek anonymity and take steps to prevent jigsaw identification. The Victims and Prisoners Act is amended so victims — including specified close relatives of British nationals murdered abroad — get an appendix to the victims’ code setting out services and how to access them.
The Victims’ Commissioner gains limited powers to act on cases with wider public‑policy implications and to request cooperation from local authorities and social‑housing providers on anti‑social behaviour matters.A substantial operational strand moves victim information duties onto 'providers of probation services': they must take reasonable steps to notify and provide victims with information about release, discharge, licence and supervision conditions, and related hospital or tribunal developments, across a range of sentencing, hospital order and transfer scenarios. The bill also adjusts certain CPS appointment rules and amends sentencing‑review deadlines to allow limited extensions where an Attorney General review request arrives late.
Taken together, the measures prioritize victim access to information and courtroom presence at sentencing, while creating a web of new operational duties for justice and public‑protection agencies.
The Five Things You Need to Know
The Crown Court (and qualifying service courts) may order an offender detained in custody to be brought to their sentencing hearing; failure without reasonable excuse is contempt of court.
When contempt arises from failure to attend or disruptive conduct at sentencing and the offender is sentenced to imprisonment, the court may impose a 'prison sanctions order' whose sanctions must correspond to punishments allowed under prison rules; regulations set permissible sanctions and maximum periods and are subject to affirmative resolution.
The Crown Court must make a prohibited steps order preventing an offender with parental responsibility from exercising parental functions where the offender receives a life sentence or 4+ years for a listed serious sexual offence against a child, or where a child is satisfied to have been conceived by rape; those orders endure until varied or discharged.
Victims can request and must receive, free, court transcripts of the Route to Verdict and any bail decisions relevant to their case within 14 days, and sentencing remarks must be published online within 14 days of request after giving victims the opportunity to seek anonymity.
The bill transfers and centralises many victim‑information duties to 'providers of probation services'—they must take all reasonable steps to notify victims about releases, discharges, licence/supervision conditions and related tribunal activity across prison, hospital order and transfer scenarios.
Section-by-Section Breakdown
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Court power to compel attendance and sanction non‑attendance
This insert gives the Crown Court an express power to order detained offenders to attend sentencing and makes non‑compliance a contempt. The provision requires consultation with youth offending teams before ordering attendance of under‑18s and authorises reasonable force in delivering adults to court. Practically, courts gain a statutory tool to avoid sentencing in the absence of the offender, but must balance welfare checks for juveniles and manage logistics for physically bringing prisoners to court.
Contempt sanctions modelled on governor discipline, regulated by affirmative order
The bill creates the 'prison sanctions order' as an option when dealing with contempt at sentencing: its sanctions must correspond to punishments available under prison rules and any maximum periods set in regulations cannot exceed those prison‑rule maxima. Regulations may add qualifications, exceptions or governor discretions; crucially they are subject to the affirmative parliamentary procedure, which gives Parliament a direct say over the scope and caps of these sanctions. Operationally, prisons will need processes to apply governor‑style punishments following a court order rather than following internal disciplinary proceedings.
Parallel attendance and contempt provisions for service offences
The Armed Forces Act is amended to mirror the Crown Court regime for Court Martial and Service Civilian Court sentencing hearings. Orders can be made on motion or on application by the Director of Service Prosecutions; the Provost Marshal may authorise personnel to use reasonable force to deliver detained adult offenders. This alignment simplifies handling of service convictions but creates equivalent operational tasks for military custodial and policing structures.
Automatic prohibited‑steps orders in specified child sexual cases and rape‑conceived children
The Crown Court is required to impose prohibited steps orders when sentencing offenders who have parental responsibility and receive life or 4+ year sentences for offences listed in a new Schedule (serious sexual offences against children). A separate provision requires an order where the court is satisfied a child was conceived by rape. Orders prevent the offender from exercising parental steps without High Court or family court consent and survive acquittal or sentence reduction unless actively reviewed; local authorities are required to apply to review in certain post‑appeal scenarios. The scheme front‑loads child protection at sentencing but limits Crown Court enforcement jurisdiction for later enforcement matters, which are reserved to family courts.
Stronger disclosure protections and transcript/remark access for victims
The bill voids contractual provisions that would stop a victim making an allegation or disclosure about criminal conduct (subject to specified national‑security and other exceptions), and mandates free provision of Route to Verdict and bail transcripts within 14 days. It also requires courts to publish sentencing remarks online within 14 days of a request, after consulting victims about anonymity and taking steps to prevent identification. These rules aim to increase transparency and victim agency but require courts and HMCTS to develop rapid redaction and publication workflows.
Providers of probation services become the operational hub for victim information
A large suite of amendments restructures Part 3A and moves many notification and representation duties onto 'providers of probation services'. They must take all reasonable steps to inform victims about release, discharge, licence/supervision conditions, hospital leave and tribunal outcomes across imprisonment, hospital and transfer cases, and to pass victim impact statements to tribunals where applicable. The Secretary of State must supply information needed to enable these duties. These changes standardise victims' channels for information but shift significant operational and data‑sharing burdens onto providers of probation services and hospital managers.
Expanded remit and reporting duties for the Commissioner
The Victims’ Commissioner gains discretionary power to act on individual cases that raise public‑policy issues relevant to other victims, and to request cooperation from local authorities and social housing providers on anti‑social behaviour matters; such requests must be complied with insofar as appropriate and practicable. The Commissioner must also report publicly on code compliance to the Secretary of State and Attorney General, and those reports draw responses under existing duties to respond to recommendations.
CPS designation and review time limits
The bill amends CPS appointment rules so designated prosecutors need not have a general legal qualification, but clarifies such appointees do not obtain rights of audience or rights to conduct litigation; related Legal Services Act exemptions are adjusted. On sentencing reviews, where an Attorney General review request arrives late within the 28‑day window, the time to give notice for an application to refer to the Court of Appeal may be extended by 14 days from receipt; the Attorney General's certificate on receipt date is conclusive. The government must also nominate a department to inform victims of their s36 review rights.
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Explore Justice in Codify Search →Who Benefits and Who Bears the Cost
Every bill creates winners and losers. Here's who stands to gain and who bears the cost.
Who Benefits
- Victims and close family members — gain quicker access to key court material (Route to Verdict and bail transcripts within 14 days), the ability to have sentencing remarks published (with anonymity protections), and stronger, proactive notification about release, discharge and licence conditions via identified probation providers.
- Children and families at risk from offenders with parental responsibility — Crown Court prohibited‑steps orders automatically remove parental steps for serious child sexual offences or where a child was conceived by rape, reducing immediate contact risk and clarifying legal status pending family‑court variation or discharge.
- Victims of overseas murder or manslaughter who are British nationals — the Secretary of State must produce a victims’ code appendix and set out services and support available in England and Wales, improving consistency for bereaved families with extraterritorial crimes.
- Victims of hospitalised or restricted patients and victims of domestic abuse — gain explicit routes to provide victim impact statements to tribunals and receive tribunal and hospital information via probation providers, increasing participation in tribunal processes and discharge decisions.
- The Victims’ Commissioner and advocacy groups — receive statutory powers to act on cases that raise public‑policy issues and to compel cooperation (where appropriate) from local authorities and social‑housing providers, strengthening systemic advocacy for victims.
Who Bears the Cost
- Providers of probation services and their local partners — responsible for new, time‑sensitive notification duties across many scenarios; they must build processes to receive data from Secretary of State, hospital managers and tribunals and then communicate appropriately to victims. This will require staff time, secure data flows and governance.
- HM Courts & Tribunals Service and court staff — must supply transcripts within 14 days, publish sentencing remarks online with redaction/anonymity checks, and manage additional administrative requests; that requires new publication workflows and redaction capacity.
- Prisons and young offender institutions and authorised officers — must facilitate attendance orders, transport detained offenders to sentencing hearings and may use reasonable force in delivering adults to court; operational risk, training and potential legal exposure increase.
- Local authorities — required to make prompt applications to review prohibited‑steps orders following acquittal or sentence reduction in specified windows (usually 30 days), adding urgent casework obligations to children’s services.
- Ministry of Justice and Secretary of State — must draft and lay multiple sets of regulations (including those specifying prison sanctions and offence lists) and provide information to probation providers and tribunals, creating policy‑making and resourcing demands.
Key Issues
The Core Tension
The central dilemma is between strengthening victims’ safety, transparency and participation (through immediate court powers, faster access to material and expanded notification duties) and protecting procedural fairness, detainee rights and family life: the bill pushes operational burdens onto prisons, probation providers and local authorities while offering victims quicker remedies, but those remedies risk legal challenge or uneven delivery unless the regulations, data‑sharing arrangements and resourcing are carefully designed.
The bill stitches together protective measures for victims and procedural powers for courts, but several implementation tensions remain. First, the attendance power and prison sanctions order rely on alignment between courts, prison governors and custodial staff: courts will issue orders, but prisons must operationalise delivery (transport, security, segregation, and potential use of force).
That handover raises ECHR risks (right to family life and detainee rights), Health and safety considerations, and requires clear custody‑to‑court protocols and training to avoid unlawful use of force or disproportionate treatment of vulnerable detainees.
Second, the 'prison sanctions order' routes sanctions that look like internal discipline into the post‑conviction contempt context. Although the bill restricts sanctions to those corresponding to prison‑rule punishments, it does not import the full procedural protections of internal disciplinary hearings; the regulations (subject to affirmative resolution) will be the key place to set procedural safeguards, notification rights and appeal routes.
If regulations are narrow or under‑resourced, courts and governors may face legal challenges about fairness and administrative law.
Third, the substantial transfer of victim‑information duties to providers of probation services collides with data‑protection, confidentiality and capacity constraints. Providers will need timely, accurate data from prisons, hospitals and tribunals; the Secretary of State is obliged to provide some information but gaps may persist.
That creates the risk of inconsistent service levels across regions and types of cases, and places local authorities and hospital managers in the middle of data‑sharing decisions with limited statutory clarity about thresholds for disclosure and anonymisation.
Finally, the Crown Court’s power to impose prohibited steps orders at sentencing—extending to orders that survive acquittal or sentence reduction until actively reviewed—creates a protective but legally precarious position for defendants and families. The bill mitigates this by requiring local authority review applications in post‑appeal scenarios, but the rapid 30‑day windows and the Crown Court’s inability to enforce the order itself (family court jurisdiction retained) mean there is potential for delay or jurisdictional friction when families seek to vary or discharge orders.
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