Neither, it seems, do the U.K. 4,500 individuals convicted of child sex abuse spent not one day in prison.
Absolutely shocking.
Labour’s claim fact-checked
In the first of the attack adverts released by Labour last week, the party claimed that under the Conservatives, 4,500 adults convicted of sexually assaulting children under 16 served no time in prison.
The ad relies on Ministry of Justice data, which is accurate but is from 2010 to the first half of last year, which extends to before Sunak was an MP but also includes the time when Sir Keir Starmer was director of public prosecutions and sat on the Sentencing Council, which sets sentencing guidelines. In 2012 it set out guidelines suggesting that not all child sex abusers should automatically be jailed.
It is judges and magistrates who decide on sentences for criminals rather than politicians, but parliament can set minimum and maximum sentences. Labour claimed the lenient punishments were due in part to problems within the criminal justice system including case backlogs and crowded prisons.
In 2020, according to the Sentencing Academy, the average sentence for sexual assault of a child under 13 in 2020 was three years and eight months, up from two years and three months in 2010 when Labour was last in power.
There was a gradual increase in the average sentence for the offence before it peaked in 2019.