Doug Beattie

Doug Beattie, who sits on Stormont’s justice committee, said the establishment of a dedicated body similar to the Sentencing Council for England and Wales would help members of the public understand why certain sentences are handed down.

Crown Court judges in Northern Ireland currently rely on case law from the Court of Appeal, rather than binding guidelines, to determine sentences.

“I listen to judges when they give their summing up and they go into case law and I have no understanding whatsoever what they are talking about,” Mr Beattie said.

“There’s no transparency. There’s no openness. We are absolutely bombarded with legal jargon which we don’t understand.”

In contrast, he said the high-profile sentencing in England of Southport killer Axel Rudakubana was “incredibly clear” because of the judge’s reference to the written sentencing guidelines.

Mr Beattie said he was concerned that sentencing in Northern Ireland is “very lenient” and that this could also be addressed by binding guidelines which reduce judges’ discretion in sentencing.

He suggested that the body could either have an equal split of judicial and lay members or a slight judicial majority.

There is no reason to believe that a new body would “break the bank”, he added. “We’re talking about setting up something which is not going to be, in the grand scheme of things, hugely expensive – but the impact it will have would be huge.”

The Department of Justice has said it will consider the establishment of a formal sentencing guideline body in a forthcoming review.

However, the lady chief justice last week discouraged the idea in a public lecture delivered at Ulster University.

Dame Siobhan Keegan said: “For a more compact and much less populous jurisdiction such as ours which operates on a different footing my view is that a similar approach to England and Wales would be overly rigid and constricting.”

She added: “I believe that our system of guideline judgments under the steer of the Court of Appeal has served us well. There is a need for flexibility in sentencing to reflect the infinitely variable circumstances that can arise.”