Sentences must be set by judges not accountants

That was Liberal Democrat Justice spokesperson David Howarth's response to the report last week by theSentencing Commission Working group.

He went on: "The commission is right to reject rigid US-style sentencing grids in favour of improving the current system of guidelines.

"There are better ways of co-ordinating the resources going into prisons and community sentences than the government simply telling judges how to decide individual cases.

"Britain needs an independent agency to assess what works, and which feeds its results both into Government spending decisions and the sentencing guidelines.

"This will lead to automatic co-ordination without each side telling the other how to do its job."