Sentencing For Wasting Police Time

[Carolhunt]

A friend of mine has done some really dumb things.
He has made about 20 false reports to the police and the police has acted on some of them. The first three the police acted on were stopping a car using a tpac which involed 4 police cars and 8 officers and took about 45minutes each time. Plus another 3 stops on foot with 3 officers involed each time but these were armed police.
He has also made a statment to the police for harassment. Which they are looking in to.
All these reports are false.
He has now been charged with wasting police time.
The thing is he has a long criminal recond from 15 years ago which also includes false calls to the fire service and the police has told him that it has cost about 250 police hours to deal with all this.
Do you think he is looking at a prison sentence.

[Buenchico]

Oddly, although magistrates have a document (consisting of over 450 pages) giving them guidelines for sentencing almost every offence which can come before them, it doesn't include the offence of wasting police time.

So, working within the framework which the law gives them (i.e. a fine of up to £2500 and/or a prison sentence of up to 6 months), the magistrates, possibly together with their legal adviser, will have to work it out for themselves.

Here are a few examples of the penalties that have been handed down by other courts:
https://www.criminallawandjustice.co.uk/law-digest/Magistrates%E2%80%99-court-wasting-police-time-1

http://www.iomtoday.co.im/article.cfm?id=32775&headline=Couple%20lied%20about%20assault%20to%20the%20police&sectionIs=news&searchyear=2017

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-northern-ireland-37187121

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-scotland-tayside-central-20254822

http://www.loughboroughecho.net/news/local-news/man-sentenced-16-weeks-prison-5806141

My guess is that the magistrates will impose the maximum sentence available to them (after a one third reduction for an early guilty plea), which is one of 4 MONTHS imprisonment. However the actual time your friend would be 'banged up' would be 2 months (or possibly slightly less if he was eligible for tagging)

[Jethro77]

Yes, unless he is suffering from mental health issues which the background indicates might need some investigation.