Does guilty plea mean you'll be locked up

[Chippychop]

Someone pleads guilty to child molestation (of DGC) in crown court will they automatically be Jailed until sentencing in a few weeks?

No, not automatically. It is all very dependent on many factors.

These could include factors such as the severity of the crime, whether hes already been on remand and how long the ultimate sentence is likely to be.

Thx Tracey I never realised that. Seems odd but the law is complicated I suppose

Bail is unlikely to be granted because of the risk to other children so id say yes, expect custody.

In this case he pleaded guilty and is out and about until setancing in a few weeks. I don't know the details as I'm just trying to support a friend by understanding the process

Was he told to expect a jail term Chippy? Normally some indication of sentence is given at the plea hearing (only a very vague indication as to what the sentencing guidelines are). If you can tell us the charge then someone may be able to help in terms of what sentence he may be given. Although obviously that can vary wildly.

I think it's child molestation...my friend was told by the police he'll get a custodial sentence but it may only be a few months. I was just surprised he wouldn't be locked up immediately. As you can imagine it's v distressing for her - it's not exactly a situation that comes up every day.

While I wouldn't normally disagree with babybarrister, recently there was a local case of a doctor pleading guilty to a significant number of charges of child sex abuse and was out on bail until sentencing two months later, when he was sentenced to 22 years.

In that case, they all happened at work and he was obviously suspended so perhaps he was felt to have a low risk of reoffending while on bail.

It depends very much on what they actually did. I won't go into details about all the different sort of things that are taken into account as I'm sure that would be far too distressing.

However, for the very mildest form of physical molestation, or sexual assault, then the starting point for the offence is 6 months in prison if the victim is under 13. This would go up to 5 years in prison for more extreme types of molestation. Rape would start at 10 years in prison. These figures may be decreased or increased depending on any mitigating or aggravating factors that are relevant to the particular offence.

With any sentences for sexual offences the offender will, generally speaking, spend half of the time in prison and the remaining time out on licence - you might know it as ''parole''. Although this can be affected by the length of sentence. People who are convicted of non-sexual or non-violent offences can be released earlier than this and placed on electronic tagging

As babybarrister says above, it is not uncommon for people accused of these crimes to be given bail and so have time to sort out their lives etc before they go into prison as long as there is no chance that they will have any contact with their victims or any other likely victims.

babybarrister, I completely agree with you and it did come as a surprise locally just how long he got. BBC News story

chippy, I hope your friend sees justice served with a decent and appropriate sentence for the person concerned.