Update: Child Defendants in the Crown Court (formerly Youth Defendants in the Crown Court)
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A new edition of the Child Defendants in the Crown Court bench book has been published.
This is the fifth edition of the bench book, previously titled Youth Defendants in the Crown Court and first published in March 2021. It aims to gather in one place everything relating to child defendants that a Crown Court judge or recorder needs to know.
The June 2025 edition takes account of all relevant Court of Appeal and High Court authorities and changes to legislation and sentencing guidelines since the last edition, published in October 2023. These include:
- important recent guidance on reporting restrictions and “excepting directions” contained in BSW v The Crown Court at Birmingham [2024] EWHC 3308 (Admin) and R v BGI and CMB [2024] EWCR 5
- R v Sweeney (Thomas) [2024] EWCA Crim 382 on a defendant crossing relevant age thresholds
- guidance on imposing a detention and training order consecutive to another sentence of detention: R v Kovalkov [2023] EWCA Crim 1509
- the impact of a tagged curfew when subject to a remand to local authority accommodation: R v Shotayo [2024] EWCA Crim 596
- the current release provisions for determinate custodial sentences imposed on child defendants
- a new chapter, “Sentencing adults who committed offences as children”, focusing on the guidance provided by the Court of Appeal in R v Ahmed (Nazir) [2023] EWCA Crim 281 and other recent authorities.
- The bench book now also reproduces Appendix II of the Crown Court Compendium Part II, which provides guidance for writing and delivering sentencing remarks to child defendants.
The bench book is up to date as of June 2025.