Give public a say on prison sentences, says Reform UK

The deputy leader of Reform UK has proposed a new law that would allow members of the public a say when they think criminal sentences are either too harsh or too lenient.

MP Richard Tice said he wanted a system where if 500 members of the public said they disagreed with a sentence in a petition to the Criminal Cases Review Commission (CCRC), it would have to decide whether to refer the decision to a court.

He said it would add a further safeguard on sentences and that would give the public more confidence in the justice system.

A spokesperson for the Ministry of Justice (MoJ) said they were not actively considering Tice's proposals.

Tice told MPs that "even noble, experienced, wise judges can get things wrong", but that "maybe the public would have ever more confidence in a vibrant democracy, in our justice system, if it was like a system of treble check safeguard of the sentences, without being able to impinge on the original judgement that was following a case."

He said it would give people more confidence in the "fairness and the comparative appropriateness of sentences within our system".

An MoJ spokesperson declined to formally comment but said that under existing laws, a defendant can refer their conviction to the Court of Appeal if they believe their sentence to be unduly harsh or incorrect.

Anyone can refer a case they believe to be unduly lenient to the attorney general, the spokesperson added.

Tice proposed the bill in the wake of the case of Lucy Connolly, and referenced her in his speech in the House of Commons.

Alluding to Connolly's case, he said someone sending a post on social media could be given a sentence "that might be significantly more than the sentence given to a shoplifter, a robber, a mugger, a drug dealer".

Connolly was jailed for 31 months in October after admitting inciting racial hatred. She posted on on X calling for "mass deportation now", adding "set fire to all the... hotels [housing asylum seekers]... for all I care".

Her message was reposted 940 times and viewed 310,000 times, before she deleted it three and a half hours later.

In May, she lost an appeal against her sentence.

Tice has previously said Connolly should be freed and that her imprisonment was an example of "two tier justice".

The CCRC, the body Tice proposes would assess any sentences a public petition has flagged, has faced criticism after a series of missteps.

The independent, arms-length body looks into potential miscarriages of justice in England, Wales and Northern Ireland.

Dame Vera Baird KC, the new interim chair of the CCRC, told the BBC earlier this month the commission was "incapable of learning from their mistakes" and she wanted to "root out" the culture causing them.

Her predecessor quit in January after an independent report concluded the CCRC had mishandled the case of Andrew Malkinson and had failed to complete basic work that could have cast doubt on his conviction.

Malkinson was wrongly imprisoned for rape in 2004. He was freed in 2023 when a judge declared his conviction unsafe when new DNA evidence on the victim's clothing was found to match another man.

MPs will debate the use of prison as a penalty for non-violent offences arising from social media posts after a Parliamentary petition created by ex-Reform MP Rupert Lowe passed the 100,000 signatures threshold.