Judge following PSR?
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My person is due sentencing next week. PSR and psychiatric report both recommend community order. Does the judge usually follow the recommendations on them? I'm just so worried as I know it can also depend on the judge on the day.
My understanding is that they generally do, yes. Have you got some good letters of reference from people who know him well, including yourself? Those are helpful.
I've done a character reference and so has my mum. His therapist has written a letter about his engagement with them within the last year too as well as documented mental health issues since before and during this. The psychiatric report stated that it's very likely he has ADHD and if he had been taking correct medication they believe this wouldn't have happened. I don't know if the judge will taking all of that into consideration when passing sentence.
Sounds like you have really good back up evidence. The magistrates in our case had certainly taken ours seriously, and lots of others do as well, so hopefully your mag or judge will too.
Has he started on ADHD meds now? That could be good for the judge to know.
Has he started on ADHD meds now? That could be good for the judge to know.
He only got told about it in the psychiatric report which was done a few weeks ago and getting a gp appointment is a nightmare. My persons sentencing is at crown and I'm so worried that means it could very well be custodial even with all the evidence about his mental health.
Just a tip - take printed paper copies of your mitigation in case the court wifi plays up or, as in our son's case, his letters and reports hadn't been sent to the judge online as should have been done. The judge was going to just ignore this fact rather than sort it out so having paper copies helped as he accepted them and had a read.
There is a big difference between a community order and custodial. Does the solicitor think such a big jump is on the cards?
If on the waiting list for ADHD medication/diagnosis that might still be worth mentioning as it is in his favour that he is taking action to help himself.
If on the waiting list for ADHD medication/diagnosis that might still be worth mentioning as it is in his favour that he is taking action to help himself.
