£20,000 for banana theft trial

Von Smallhausen said:
??

If someone was charged with an indictable only offence it could only be tried in a Crown Court and even with a not guilty plea it would still be heard in a Crown Court.

You can not choose to be tried in a Magistrates court with more serious cases.

I have never heard of murder, robbery or rape to ever have been tried in a Magistrates court at the request of the suspect.
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Obviously I'm talking about either way offences...
 
fini said:
It's a serious question though. You're saying that the law should be changed so that 25p thefts are not triable either-way. I think it's fair to ask where you think the line should be - even if it was discretionary there would still need to be some sort of guidance.
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At a sensible guess, maybe a limit of £1000 ?
 
This kind of thing should be settled at the police station with a fine or caution, but people must be given the option of jury trial.
 
Foxtrot Charlie said:
I would argue otherwise, Magistrates inconsistently sentence people and regularly handout supervision orders and the like even in the face of a mountain of previous like for like convictions.
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We are talking conviction here though, they are more likely to convict because of various factors. Sentencing is an issue of course, sometimes sentencing is wholly ott and other times ludicrously too low for a crime. Last stats I saw about 10 years back also showed blacks were around 3 times as likely as whites to see prison for the same crime. Magistrates coming from more conservative backgrounds would influence this in my opinion.

Von Smallhausen said:
At a sensible guess, maybe a limit of £1000 ?
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The thing here though is that it makes it easier to get a conviction on a 25p theft than a £1000 theft. The chance of a conviction should be the same, regardless of the theft. Given the obsession with CRB checks in vast swathes of jobs, often illegally by public bodies where they are not allowed or needed, these convictions can ruin livelihoods and lives. If a case is serious enough a magistrate can refer to crown for sentencing anyway?
 
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