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Right. So whereas 1 in 3.8 referrals would end up at the CA, now only 1 in 5.5 do. There is no mention of how many of these have resulted in an increase in the original sentence.

I have seen no evidence of any benefit derived by members of the public being able to instigate reviews as of right. When vastly more than 80% of those referrals end in nothing but the wasted time of some harried prosecutor, why should we as a country be wasting our time on this nonsense, merely because somebody who may never have heard of sentencing guidelines decides that any given defendant must have got off lightly?

Can we not trust the AG to decide which cases to appeal? And if not, why not?

Also, why is it the case that a member of the public, with no connection or involvement in a case can trigger a referral for what they arbitrarily consider an unduly lenient sentence, but not what they might consider an manifestly excessive sentence? If the sauce is good for the goose, surely it's good for the gander.