Section 69A: Offences where foreign power or designated body condition met

Sentencing Act 2020 · 2020 c. 17View on legislation.gov.uk

Part 4: Exercise of court's discretion — CHAPTER 3: Seriousness and determining sentence

This section applies where a court is considering the seriousness of an offence that—

is committed on or after the day on which section 19 of the National Security Act 2023 comes into force, and
is not an offence listed in subsection (2).

Those offences are—

an offence under the National Security Act 2023 or an inchoate offence (see section 398) in relation to any such offence;
a relevant electoral offence within the meaning given by section 16 of that Act (foreign interference in elections).

Where the foreign power condition or the designated body condition is met in relation to the conduct that constitutes the offence, the court—

must treat that fact as an aggravating factor, and
must state in open court that the offence is so aggravated.

Where an offence is found to have been committed over a period of 2 or more days, or at some time during a period of 2 or more days, it must be taken for the purposes of subsection (1) to have been committed on the first of those days.

Sections 31 and 33B of the National Security Act 2023 (meaning of foreign power condition and designated body condition) apply for the purposes of this section as they apply for the purposes of Part 1 of that Act.

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Reuse reviewed 21 August 2026 under Open Government Licence v3.0.