Yes, order limit, the so-called independent Sentencing Council does seem to have, as a major part of its remit, the need to keep people out of prison. It is rare indeed for someone to be given a custodial sentence for Common Assault yet some examples of it are extremely unpleasant. (Some examples of it should actually be charged as ABH but the CPS, ever-mindful of the cost of going to trial, especially if the defendant opts for Crown Court, very often seem to under-charge with Common Assault. This either elicits a plea or, at the very least, removes the possibility of the matter going to the Crown Court).
Virtually every new guideline that is published downgrades the suggested sentences or introduces new variations of the offence which should be sentenced at a lower level. Not so long ago this particular incident would almost certainly result in custody.
Owen Jones’s article advocating the abolition of the Metropolitan Police makes interesting reading. Of course the incidents he describes do not show those individual officers concerned in a good light. His adulation of the Macpherson report is to be expected. My views on it are well known but in short some of its recommendations were ludicrous and far from advancing policing in London I believe in some respects it set it back 20 years and that setback has still not been recovered. However to suggest the organisation be abolished is a little hasty (not even Macpherson recommended that). He cites, as a reason, the Met’s dealing with protests saying their methods are “…symptomatic of a force that saw protest as something that had to be contained, not facilitated.” I think if you took a straw poll of people living and working in London you would almost certainly find that most of them want the police to contain protests so that they can go about their business. Hardly, then, a reason for abolition. He is also careful to promote no alternative to his slash-and-burn policy, simply saying that the issue of replacement “…should be left to a royal commission – headed by an independent figure,..”. All in all, very constructive.