Legal Aid, Sentencing and Punishment of Offenders Bill

177DB: After Clause 81, insert the following new Clause— ““Enforcement (1) Where a magistrates’ court has fined an offender who did not respond to a summons and who was absent from the court when convicted, or has imposed any other financial penalty in the absence of the offender, at any time— (a) the court may suspend or withdraw a warrant of enforcement given to a bailiff, and (b) the bailiff may return the case to the court which convicted the offender or such other responsible court within the jurisdiction of the area in which the offender resides (““the responsible court””). (2) Regulations shall be made enabling a court, Her Majesty’s Court Service or any person employed to enforce a warrant against a convicted person, to suspend or withdraw the warrant and return the matter to the court which convicted the offender or the responsible court as in subsection (6). (3) Any person enforcing a warrant for a levy of distress or an execution against goods on behalf of a magistrates’ court shall be paid a single fee in respect of the work undertaken on the warrant to recover the fine or debt. (4) Where any person enforcing a warrant for a levy of distress or an execution against goods following a fine or other order imposed by a magistrates’ court fails to recover the payment of the fine or discovers no or insufficient goods exist, that person shall return the matter to the court which imposed the fine or the responsible court in subsection (1) in order that another enforcement method for the recovery of the money owed may be undertaken. (5) Regulations made under subsection (2) shall include the steps to be taken in a case where following conviction it is discovered that the convicted person falls into a ““vulnerable category”” for the purposes of page 9 of the National Standards for Enforcement Agents or as may be prescribed. (6) Where on enforcing a warrant for a levy of distress or an execution against goods, the person enforcing the warrant discovers that the convicted person falls into a vulnerable category for the purposes of page 9 of the National Standards for Enforcement Agents or under regulations made in subsection (5), it shall be the duty of the person enforcing the warrant to return the matter to the magistrates’ court or the responsible court as the case may be for further consideration of the enforcement steps to be taken.””