Criminal Justice Act 1948
1948 c.58
An Act to abolish penal servitude, hard labour, prison divisions and sentence of whipping; to amend the law relating to the probation of offenders, and otherwise to reform existing methods and provide new methods of dealing with offenders and persons liable to imprisonment; to amend the law relating to the proceedings of criminal courts, including the law relating to evidence before such courts; to abolish privilege of peerage in criminal proceedings; to regulate the management of prisons and other institutions and the treatment of offenders and other persons committed to custody; to re–enact certain enactments relating to the matters aforesaid; and for purposes connected therewith.
[30th July 1948]
1 Abolition of penal servitude, hard labour and prison divisions.
(1) No person shall be sentenced by a court to penal servitude; and every enactment conferring power on a court to pass a sentence of penal servitude in any case shall be construed as conferring power to pass a sentence of imprisonment for a term not exceeding the maximum term of penal servitude for which a sentence could have been passed in that case immediately before the commencement of this Act.
(2) No person shall be sentenced by a court to imprisonment with hard labour; and every enactment conferring power on a court to pass a sentence of imprisonment with hard labour in any case shall be construed as conferring power to pass a sentence of imprisonment for a term not exceeding the term for which a sentence of imprisonment with hard labour could have been passed in that case immediately before the commencement of this Act; and so far as any enactment requires or permits prisoners to be kept to hard labour it shall cease to have effect.
(3) So far as any enactment provides that a person sentenced to imprisonment or committed to prison is or may be directed to be treated as an offender of a particular division, or to be placed in a separate division, it shall cease to have effect.
(1) Where a court remands a person charged with or convicted of an offence or sends him to the Crown Court for trial or commits him there for sentence and he is not less than eighteen but under twenty–one years old and is not released on bail, then, if the court has been notified by the Secretary of State that a remand centre is available for the reception from the court of persons of his class or description, it shall commit him to a remand centre and, if it has not been so notified, it shall commit him to a prison.
(2) Where a person is committed to a remand centre in pursuance of this section, the centre shall be specified in the warrant and he shall be detained there for the period for which he is remanded or until he is delivered thence in due course of law.
(3) In this section “ court ” includes a justice; and nothing in this section affects the provisions of section 128(7) of the Magistrates’ Courts Act 1980 (which provides for remands to the custody of a constable).
31 Jurisdiction and procedure in respect of certain indictable offences committed in foreign countries.
(1) Any British subject employed under His Majesty’s Government in the United Kingdom in the service of the Crown who commits, in a foreign country, when acting or purporting to act in the course of his employment, any offence which, if committed in England, would be punishable on indictment, shall be guilty of an offence . . . , and subject to the same punishment, as if the offence had been committed in England.
(2), (3) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
37 Bail on appeal, case stated or application for certiorari.
(1) Without prejudice to the powers vested before the commencement of this Act in any court to admit or direct the admission of a person to bail—
(a) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
(b) the High Court may , subject to section 25 of the Criminal Justice and Public Order Act 1994,grant bail to a person—
(i) who, after the decision of his case by the Crown Court, has applied to the Crown Court for the statement of a case for the High Court on that decision, or
(ii) who has applied to the High Court for an order of certiorari to remove proceedings in the Crown Court in his case into the High Court, or has applied to the High Court for leave to make such an application.
(c) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
(d) the High Court may ,subject to section 25 of the Criminal Justice and Public Order Act 1994,grant bail to a person who has been convicted or sentenced by a magistrates’ court and has applied to the High Court for an order of certiorari to remove the proceedings into the High Court or has applied to the High Court for leave to make such an application.
(1A) Where the court grants bail to a person under paragraph ( d ) of subsection (1) above—
(a) the time at which he is to appear in the event of the conviction or sentence not being quashed by the High Court shall be such time within ten days after the judgment of the High Court has been given as may be specified by the High Court; and
(b) the place at which he is to appear in that event shall be a magistrates’ court acting for the same petty sessions area as the court which convicted or sentenced him.
(2), (3) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
(4) Criminal Procedure Rules may be made for authorising the recommittal, in such cases and by such courts or justices as may be prescribed by the rules, of persons released from custody under this section.
(5) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
(6) The time during which a person is released on bail under paragraph (b), . . . or (d) of subsection (1) of this section shall not count as part of any term of imprisonment under his sentence; and any sentence of imprisonment imposed by a court of summary jurisdiction, or, on appeal, by the Crown Court, after the imposition of which a person is so released on bail, shall be deemed to begin to run or to be resumed as from the dayon which he is received in prison under the sentence; and for thepurposes of this subsection the expression “prison” shall be deemed to include a detention centre and remand home and the expression “imprisonment” shall be construed accordingly.
(1) In any criminal proceedings, a certificate purporting to be signed by a constable, or by a person having the prescribed qualifications, and certifying that a plan or drawing exhibited thereto is a plan or drawing made by him of the place or object specified in the certificate, and that the plan or drawing is correctly drawn to a scale so specified, shall be evidence of the relative position of the things shown on the plan or drawing.
(2) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
(3) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
(4) Nothing in this section shall be deemed to make a certificate . . . admissible as evidence in proceedings for an offence except in a case where and to the extent to which oral evidence to the like effect would have been admissible in those proceedings.
(5) Nothing in this section shall be deemed to make a certificate . . . admissible as evidence in proceedings for any offence—
(a) unless a copy thereof has, not less than seven days before the hearing or trial, been served in the prescribed manner on the person charged with the offence; or
(b) if that person, not later than three days before the hearing or trial or within such further time as the court may in special circumstances allow, serves notice in the prescribed form and manner on the prosecutor requiring the attendance at the trial of the person who signed the certificate . . .
(5A) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
(6) In this section the expression “prescribed” means prescribed by rules made by the Secretary of State.
(1) Notwithstanding anything in section two of the Criminal Procedure Act 1865, as amended by section three of the Criminal Evidence Act 1898, the prosecution shall not be entitled to the right of reply upon the trial of any person on indictment on the ground only that documents have been put in evidence for the defence.
(2),(3) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
(1) As from such date as may be specified in an order made by statutory instrument by the Secretary of State, no premises shall be used as a remand home unless a certificate of approval has been issued by the Secretary of State.
(2) The Secretary of State may by rules made under this Act apply to remand homes, with such adaptations and modifications as he thinks fit, the provisions of section seventy–nine and subsection (3) of section one hundred and six of the Children and Young Persons Act 1933 (which relate to the approval of schools for the purposes of that Act and the evidence of such approval).
(3) No person shall be appointed after the commencement of this Act to be in charge of a remand home established by a county council or a county borough council unless his appointment has been approved by the Secretary of State.
(4) Councils of counties and county boroughs may provide in remand homes provided for their areas facilities for the observation of any person detained therein on whose physical or mental condition a medical report may be desirable for the assistance of the court in determining the most suitable method of dealing with his case, or may, if facilities for observation are available at any other institution or place, arrange for the use of those facilities for the observation of any such person as aforesaid.
(5) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
(6) Any expenses incurred by the council of a county or county borough in giving effect to arrangements made under subsection (4) of this section, and any sums paid by such a council under subsection (4) of the last foregoing section, shall be treated for the purposes of any grant under section one hundred and four of the Children and Young Persons Act 1933, as expenses of the council in respect of remand homes.