questionText: To ask the Secretary of State for Justice, what assessment he has made of the number of offenders refusing to attend sentencing hearings who were convicted of an offence where (a) a life sentence must or may be imposed and (b) where the maximum sentence does not permit a life sentence to be imposed in each of the last three years.
answerText: The information requested is not held centrally. However, our data shows that from January 2021 to June 2023, 182 cases in the Crown Court were sentenced in absence of the defendant where the defendant was remanded in custody. However, the data does not p...
heading: Sentencing: Attendance