LABOUR is trying to reverse sentencing guidelines aimed at protecting black people from unfair treatment in the criminal justice system, it emerged yesterday.
Justice Secretary Shabana Mahmood is to write to the independent Sentencing Council, urging it to reverse guidance advising judges to take into account the ethnicity or faith of the defendant before deciding whether or not to imprison.
Official figures show that people from ethnic minorities consistently receive longer sentences than white people for comparable offences.
               The Tory conference was a pseudo-sacred affair, with devotees paying homage in front of Thatcher’s old shrouds — and your reporter, initially barred, only need mention he’d once met her to gain access. But would she consider what was on offer a worthy legacy, asks ANDREW MURRAY

               

