Thank you for rating my answer.

As I mentioned before, the legal presumption is that the sentence will be activated. If his barrister is saying it won't be then perhaps he knows something about your boyfriend's personal circumstances that I don't and he may well be right.

A judge will always start from the point that the sentence will be activated and it is for the barrister to argue otherwise, using the report and the facts of the offence and details about your boyfriend to argue otherwise.

If the judge does, in the worst case scenario decide to activate the sentence then he is highly likely to only activate it in part to reflect the fact that your boyfriend has already done all his community requirements. In my view he should only activate it by half, perhaps even less.

Your boyfriend will then receive a consecutive sentence for the new offence. You say he used credit card details to obtain about £2500. This is known as obtaining credit by fraud and there are sentencing guidelines for this sort of offence.

Those guidelines say that where the fraud was fraudulent from the beginning and involves more that one fraudulent transaction and an amount under £5000, the sentence will be in a range from a community order up to 6 weeks custody.

Where there is in fact only one fraudulent transaction, the sentence is significantly lower and could easily not be custody.

However, it can be higher where it was a professionally planned and obviously very pre - meditated offence.

It really depends on the number of transactions he carried out and how professional his behaviour was. Given the small amount of cash he gained, it is certainly arguable that it should not be custody.

If he does get custody it will be a matter of months rather than anything more than that. You would also then have to add on the amount he receives for the old offence.

I have just seen your new post and you mention that our boyfriend had serious financial worries and other problems. It seems to me your barrister is right to be positive that he may not receive custody.

If he does, the sentence as I said is more likely to be in months rather than anything higher.

Hope that helps. Please contact me again if you have any problems.

Hello, as far as your further questions are concerned:

First of all you can never say which prison a defendant will be taken to. It always depends on which one has space available so unfortunately you can't guarantee that he will end up in the local one I'm afraid.

The usual rule is that a defendant will do 50% of his sentence then be released for the other half.

There is always a possibility he could be released earlier on home curfew but that isn't something the courts deal with. This is a decision taken within the prison.

As far as the number of months in custody is concerned I would have thought it would be fewer than 6 for the new offence given the profit he made. the total depends on how much of the suspended sentence is activated. That depends on the mitigation put forward on his behalf on the day which is not something I can predict. More than that I can't say.

I can't guarantee any sentence because I don't have the pre sentence report or the benefit of a conference with your boyfriend.

However, if he has only committed a few fraudulent transactions on the new offence, the guidelines suggest custody of fewer than 2 months.

I said 6 months for that offence to be on the safe side although it would probably be much less. I can't imagine he would get anything more than that.

Then the judge will impose a consecutive sentence for the breach. That will hopefully be only about half of the original sentence, so maybe about 5 months.

In total the entire sentence would probably not be more than about 10 months. Please remember though that this is all affected by things like the pre sentence report, his personal mitigation and the individual facts of the offence.

It sounds to me as if he has a good chance of getting another suspended sentence.

Hello, sorry about the delay in answering but I was dealing with other work.

I have looked at the further information you gave me. Thank you for those details.

Looking at the new offence details I think it's safe to say this falls within the category of multiple fraudulent transactions which were fraudulent from the outset. There is also an argument that he deliberately set up the site in order to obtain the credit card details and therefore this could be seen as very pre meditated.

For multiple fraud up to £5000, the maximum is 6 weeks custody. That could be slightly higher due to his similar previous offending but is not likely to be more than a few months.

If however the judge views this as professional offending (if he thinks the website was set up on purpose to obtain those credit card details) then the guidelines say the sentence would be higher than that, which is why I say it could go up to about 6.

However, it is unlikely the judge will see this as professional offending because the profit is so low and as you rightly pointed out, was not committed to fund a lavish lifestyle.

It would be realistic to expect a few months at the most.

It sounds as if he has very good arguments based on medical grounds for saying he should not get custody because these were the motive for his offending.

One thing which would help him a lot when it comes to sentence would be if you could write him a reference which can be given to his barrister and handed up to the judge. In that reference you can mention what kind of character he has and what he's done to turn his life around.

In answer to your other question, the court will look at how far into the suspended sentence he was at the time of committing the offence rather than when he appears in court for it.

Concerning prison - it isn't a matter which barristers deal with I'm afraid. We have no say in which type of prison he is able to go to and it isn;t for the court to decide whether he's eligible for a cat D prison or not.

If he has a good previous record he may well be, but that is a matter for the prison authorities rather than for the lawyers to decide.

I hope it all goes well at the sentencing hearing. Don't forget to provide a reference!

I definitely agree with your barrister that because of your boyfriend's personal circumstances and motives for committing the offence there is a strong chance he could get another suspended sentence, particularly because he did so well on his previous suspended sentence.

Barristers never like to quote exact figures for sentences because they can vary so much.

Also a sentence is due to so many factors it is always hard to predict.

However, I can't imagine that he would get over 12 months.

That is really a very general figure which I have mentioned but I say that to be on the safe side.

Realistically I think any custodial sentence would actually be less than that but I wouldn't like to say an exact figure, other than to remind you of the guidelines I've already mentioned.

Optimistically it could be only about 6 months in total for both. It could go as high as a year, potentially.

Your barrister sounds as if he knows what he is talking about and must already have a good idea that this sentence could be suspended.

Hello, thank you for your question and I apologise for any delay in answering but Ii've been attending a meeting all evening. As far as yout enquiry is concerned, if your boyfriend brings that money with him or at least says it's available this will be a major point in his favour as it demonstrates both his remorse and willingness to make up for what he's done. It will provide strong support for arguing for a non custodial sentence.

Hello, I'm not sure I understand why you have replied with a question mark. Is there something about my answer you need to have explained?
You asked me if your boyfriend bringing that money would make a difference. My answer is that it will. The courts always take into account remorse and willingness to repay a victim when they decide at what level a sentence falls.

In your boyfriend's case he is showing both of those factors by saying he has the money available to pay immediately should the court require it.

This won't make the prosecution drop the case against him and won't avoid him being sentenced but it will certainly help with the judge's view of what the appropriate sentence should be.

What I meant in my previous answer was that it will make it easier for his barrister to argue that your boyfriend should get a sentence he can serve in the community rather than in custody.

Hope that clarifies matters for you.

I'm sorry, I think I answered your question earlier this evening but you've replied with a question mark. Is there any reason for that or do you have a further query?

Custody is of course still an option but the willingness to pay this money will help his barrister to argue he should serve the sentence in the commmunity. In the community could mean either suspended or a community sentence. It's more likely suspended if the judge decides custody isn't an option.