Bladed Article and Offensive Weapon etc. Offences Guidelines

The Public Sector Equality Duty is a duty set out in section 149 of the Equality Act 2010 (the 2010 Act) which came into force on 5 April 2011. It is a legal duty which requires public authorities (and those carrying out public functions on their behalf) to have “due regard” to three “needs” or “limbs” when considering a new policy or operational proposal. Complying with the duty involves having due regard to each of the three limbs:

The first is the need to eliminate discrimination, harassment, victimisation and any other conduct prohibited under the 2010 Act.

The second is the need to advance equality of opportunity between those who share a “protected characteristic” and those who do not.

The third is to foster good relations between those who share a “protected characteristic” and those who do not.

Under the PSED the protected characteristics are: race; sex; disability; age; sexual orientation; religion or belief; pregnancy and maternity; and gender reassignment. The protected characteristic of marriage and civil partnership is also relevant to the consideration of the first limb of the duty.

Section 149 of the Equality Act 2010 contains further detail about what is meant by advancing equality of opportunity and fostering good relations.

The Council has had regard to its duty under the Equality Act 2010 in drafting these proposals, specifically with respect to any potential effect of the proposals on victims and offenders with protected characteristics.

The Sentencing Council considers matters relating to equality and diversity to be important in its work. The Council is always concerned if it appears that the guidelines have different outcomes for different groups. The Council published the report ‘Equality and diversity in the work of the Sentencing Council’ in January 2023, designed to identify and analyse any potential for the Council’s work to cause disparity in sentencing outcomes across demographic groups.

In addition, the available demographic data, (sex, age group and ethnicity of offenders) is examined as part of the work on each guideline, to see if there are any concerns around potential disparities within sentencing. For some offences it may not be possible to draw any conclusions on whether there are any issues of disparity of sentence outcomes between different groups caused by the guidelines, for example because of a lack of available data or because volumes of data are too low. However, the Council takes care to ensure that the guidelines operate fairly and includes reference to the Equal Treatment Bench Book in all guidelines:

The available demographic data on sex, age and ethnicity for adult offenders are summarised below. Demographic data for some offences have been presented for multiple years combined, owing to small volumes. Focus has been given to the offences for which new guidelines are being proposed, rather than existing guidelines. Additionally, demographic data has not been discussed for children and young people, owing to small volumes. Nevertheless, these statistics, along with those for all offences, can be found within the data tables published on the Sentencing Council: Statistical summaries webpage.

Sex

Across all the offences covered by the guidelines, the vast majority of offenders are male. Generally, where volumes of female offenders were high enough for robust comparison, female offenders were more likely to get a less onerous sentence outcome, specifically more likely to get a community order and less likely to get immediate custody, with an exception for possession of a prohibited offensive weapon in private, where the majority of offenders currently receive a discharge or a fine. In 2025, 48 per cent of female offenders received an absolute or conditional discharge for possession of a prohibited offensive weapon in private compared with 25 per cent of male offenders, for whom a fine was more common (44 per cent). The ACSL for female offenders sentenced for threatening with an offensive weapon, bladed article, or corrosive substance in a private place was around 4 months lower than for males in 2025. However, the number of female offenders sentenced is very small on the whole, so comparisons between outcomes and sentence lengths for male and female offenders across all offences should be treated with caution.

Age group

For most offences analysed covered by the new and revised draft guidelines, offenders most frequently came under the 30 to 39 age group, which is consistent with other offences. The exception was for possession of dangerous knives where, across 2021 to 2025, nearly a quarter of offenders were between the ages of 21 and 24, and the second most frequent age group was 50 to 59. On the whole, for offences with large enough volumes to robustly analyse them, 18 to 20 year old offenders were more likely to get a community order than other age groups, and there were no notable differences in average custodial sentence length (ACSL).

Ethnicity

In line with other offences, where ethnicity was known, the majority of offenders sentenced for these offences are white. Across most offences the proportion of offenders sentenced with an unknown or not recorded ethnicity was between approximately one fifth and one quarter. Where volumes were high enough to robustly compare between ethnicity groups, there were no substantial observed differences in ACSL. For possession of a prohibited offensive weapon in private, a similarly low proportion of offenders are currently receiving an immediate custodial sentence across all ethnicity groups, white offenders were slightly more likely than other ethnicities to receive a fine. For threatening with an offensive weapon, bladed article, or corrosive substance in a private place, both Asian and black offenders were slightly more likely than white offenders to receive an immediate custodial sentence (53 per cent and 48 per cent of outcomes, respectively, compared with 42 per cent for white offenders). However, as 83 per cent of offenders sentenced for this offence in 2025 were white, there are still only a low volume of offenders sentenced within all other ethnicity groups, so comparison of sentencing outcomes should be treated with caution.

Throughout this document your views will be sought on whether there are any disparity issues with proposals, such as whether there are any factors or aspects of the guideline which may disadvantage one group over another.