Latest edition of the Adult Court Bench Book (April 2025)
The Adult Court Bench Book (ACBB) provides guidance for magistrates who sit in the adult court dealing mainly with defendants aged 18 or over. It is used for reference at court and to support consistent training.
The ACBB is supplemented by national sentencing guidelines, checklists and pronouncement wording, available via the Pronouncement Builder (external link). These help magistrates undertake the task of decision-making in a fair and structured manner. The Adult Court Pronouncement Builder assists magistrates to explain their decisions fully and clearly.
The latest edition of the ACBB (dated April 2025) includes the following amendments:
- The previous Section 1: Notes to supplement pronouncement cards has been divided into separate sections for each topic, eg Section 1: Sentencing, Section 2: Road traffic, etc. Updates include the reinstatement of magistrates’ increased sentencing powers and ordering pre-sentence reports (PSRs) and case management when committing or sending to the Crown Court.
- Section 7: Case management has been updated to include links to the Criminal Procedure Rules and Criminal Practice Directions to ensure access to the most up to date content, and there is additional information on the PET form and evidential matters. The ‘Essential case management – applying the Criminal Procedure Rules (CrimPR)’ guidance, previously issued by the Senior Presiding Judge but which is now the responsibility of the Judicial College, has been updated and included in the checklist section (Section 10).
- Section 9: Civil orders is a new section which includes text on the making of council tax liability orders.
- Section 11: Other useful information has been updated to include links to the ‘Equal Treatment Bench Book’ chapters as well as additional information on dealing with search warrants and utility warrants.
Please note: The PDF format of the ACPCs was discontinued. From 15 May 2023, pronouncement wording became available only via the Pronouncement Builder (external link) on the Sentencing Council website.