Standard sentences
See sections 5A and 5B of the Sentencing Act 1991 in relation to standard sentences.
Standard sentences apply to prescribed offences if committed on or after 1 February 2018 by an offender who is 18 years or more. They do not apply to offences that are heard and determined summarily.
For standard sentence offences, the court must consider the standard sentence as a guidepost, representing the sentence for an offence in the middle of the range of seriousness, only having regard to factors related to the offending and not the offender.
The standard sentence is one factor to be considered among all others. It does not create two-stage sentencing nor remove the approach to sentencing known as instinctive (or intuitive) synthesis.
The court must state how the sentence imposed for a standard sentence offence relates to the prescribed standard sentence.
The standard sentence offences and corresponding standard sentences are:
| Standard sentence offence | Standard sentence |
| Murder | 30 years (for emergency and protected workers), 25 years (in any other case) |
| Homicide by firearm | 13 years |
| Rape | 10 years |
| Sexual penetration of a child under 12 | 10 years |
| Sexual penetration of a child under 16 | 6 years |
| Sexual assault of a child under 16 | 4 years |
| Sexual activity in the presence of a child under 16 | 4 years |
| Causing a child under 16 to be present during sexual activity | 4 years |
| Persistent sexual abuse of a child under 16 | 10 years |
| Sexual penetration of a child or lineal descendant (if under 18) | 10 years if victim under 18 at time of offence |
| Sexual penetration of a stepchild (if under 18) | 10 years if victim under 18 at time of offence |
| Culpable driving causing death | 8 years |
| Trafficking in a drug or drugs of dependence – large commercial quantity | 16 years |
