Family and Friends Forum

Janey - the reports will look at everything about your person's health and intellectual ability plus you can write a character reference where you can explain what you know of your person (but without sounding as if you're telling the judge what to do, of course). There will be also be mitigating circumstances like it being a first offence etc

It might be a different judge at sentencing, and it might be that at the plea hearing the judge stated what the maximum sentence could be as they have guidelines for this. Very often the reports affect that, bringing it down to a different sentence or maybe a suspended sentence, where it's carried out in the community rather than in prison.

Hope that makes you feel a bit easier about the future. Of course there is always the chance it will end up with a prison sentence but if you look through this forum you can read posts from people whose loved one is in prison and getting on OK there. It really isn't like the way it's portrayed on TV in dramas and soaps.

Fingers crossed for your person's outcome.