30/06/2012
BOOK REVIEW
BANKS ON SENTENCE
Seventh Edition
By Robert Banks and Lyndon Harris
Robert Banks
ISBN: Vols. 1 and 2: 978-0-9550386-8-6
Volume 1: 978-0-9550386-9-3
Volume 2: 978-0-9571977-0-1
www.banksr.com
THE COMPLETE AND DEFINITIVE
GUIDE TO SENTENCING:
“EXTREMELY USEFUL” SAYS LORD JUSTICE LEVESON
An appreciation by Phillip Taylor MBE and Elizabeth Taylor of Richmond Green Chambers
Most criminal practitioners are well aware of just how useful ‘Banks on Sentence’ has become in the criminal jurisdiction, to the point of being indispensible, both for advocates and judges.
Indeed, practitioners who are older wish it had been around when they were younger! The first edition was published in 2003 and from 2008, has been updated annually. ‘This book will be extremely useful,’ Leveson LJ has said in his capacity as Chairman of the Sentencing Council, and he is quite right!
Useful indeed – and very much so for the modern advocate, ‘Banks on Sentence’ in our view is the definitive short work on sentencing. As an advocate, you’re seeking the least severe sentence, which means that ideally, you as Counsel should have ‘Banks’ to refer to as you prepare to mitigate and to advise the client on the possible sentence he or she can expect.
With ‘Banks’ to hand the source material you need to refer to is available in a matter of seconds. What a boon when you’re under pressure and dealing with a difficult client!
This two-volume work with accompanying App brings together all the up-to-date material on sentencing and presents in concise, logical form. Volume I, for example, includes 138 chapters together with details concerning 120 sentencing orders.
Notably, there are large sections on sentencing which are just not available in any other text book or e-platform. Volume II contains 174 chapters logically, concisely and systematically approached and containing virtually every prosecuted offence, plus available ancillary orders.
Here, of course, we have referred only partially to the wealth of material so accessibly contained in this monumental yet very lucid and modern work of reference.
Also note that there is an ipad App containing the full text of both volumes available from Apple. It will be regularly updated until March 2013, after which a new App will be produced in May of that year.
The current App performs some formidable electronic tricks. Just one tap and the search facility leads you to the text you seek. You can email, print and copy, and you can access all the statutes and statutory instruments on the relevant website via the Internet. There’s a ‘favorites’ function as well, which lets you store the relevant text and guidelines for each case.
However, if you prefer to take a shortened printed version with you to court, note that there’s a Compact Edition which contains everything the busy practitioner needs to know which is comprehensively indexed for use in a hurry at the door of the court.
To facilitate your further research there are well over 130 pages of tables of cases and statutes in the two volume edition plus an extensive and detailed contents index at the back of each volume. Note that the website adds updates to the book about every two weeks and if that’s not enough, you can even find ‘Banks’ on Twitter.
More than just a two-volume work of reference, this is an on-going service so relevant for modern sentencing practice. In the words of Leveson, in the Foreword, this reference work ‘has become an important part of a criminal lawyer’s library’… and it is clearly going to remain there!
