Referral Orders

A Referral Order is a Court Order, which is made to help you to avoid any further offending. The Order can last for between 3 and 12 months, the length will be decided by the Court depending on the seriousness of the offence(s) you may have committed. This Order is supervised by a Youth Offending Service worker who is there to advise, assist and encourage you, and will help to prevent you re-offending.

You will be referred to a Youth Offender Panel who will agree a Contract with you about what you need to do during that time. Their purpose is to:

Hear how the victim of your offence(s) feels about it and help you to put right some of the harm done
Help you not to offend again
Help your family and friends support you in stopping offending

What does it mean?

A member of the Youth Offending Service will see you at Court when the Referral Order is made. They will arrange an appointment so that the Youth Offending Service can find out more about your circumstances and requirements and be able to prepare a background for the report for the Youth Offender Panel.

You will be given a date for the Panel meeting and told where it will be held. If you are under 16 years old, your parent/carer must attend the meeting as well. The Court can order that they must attend even if you are over 16. Where possible, the Youth Offending Service will work in partnership with parents in line with the Children’s Act 1989.

As well as your parent(s) / carer(s) the Panel may allow you to bring someone else, who is aged 18 or over, with you to the meeting; for example, a teacher or social worker. You should think about other people who might be able to help keep you out of trouble and inform the Youth Offending Team worker if you want arrangements to be made for them to attend.

If you fail to attend the appointments for the preparation of your Panel report or do not attend the Panel meeting, you may have to go back to Court. If your parent/carer fails to attend when the Court has ordered them to, they may have to go back to Court.

The Panel meeting will be much less formal than a Court, but you are still expected to treat everyone with respect.

What will the panel do?

This is the first time you have been convicted at Court and because you have pleaded Guilty, you are being given the chance to be dealt with in a different way.

Three people sit on the Youth Offender Panel, two are trained volunteers from your local community and one is from the Youth Offending Service.

The victim(s) of the offence(s) will also be invited to attend the meeting in order for them to be given the opportunity to say how they feel about the offence(s) and what they would like to see happen as a result. If the victim(s) choose not to attend, their views will be reported to the Panel. The victim may well have a supporter with them or someone else may attend to represent them.

After everyone has had their say, including you and your parent(s) / carer(s), an agreement or ‘Contract’, will be drawn up, which must include something to make good the harm that has been caused, and also activities to prevent you from offending again. For example:

A letter of apology from you to the victim(s)
Practical work for the victim(s) or local community to help put right some of the harm done
A special programme of support to address specific problems such as education, alcohol or drugs
Regular supervision appointments with your Youth Offending Service worker

What will happen during the contract?

When you have agreed and signed a Contract with the Youth Offending Panel, you will be expected to:·

Keep your appointments with your Youth Offending Service worker, which will be at least once every two weeks.
Co-operate with your Youth Offending Service worker to look at why you have offended and identify ways to avoid offending again
Carry out the things you have agreed to do, including keeping all appointments with workers from other agencies as identified at your Panel meeting
Attend Youth Offending Panel review meetings as arranged so that your progress can be looked at and any difficulties discussed
Act responsibly whilst undertaking the Referral Order and when attending all your appointments
The Referral Order does not start until you have signed your Contract.
At the end of your Order, a final Panel meeting will be held. If you have successfully completed all the conditions of your Contract your Referral Order will be finished.

What can go wrong?

If you fail to do something that is in your Contract then you will have to go back before the Panel and they may decide to send you back to Court.

Continued refusal to co-operate with the conditions of your Contract will result in you being taken back to Court for being in breach of the Referral Order. If the Court agrees with the Panel they may revoke the Referral Order and re-sentence you for the original offence

Will I have a criminal record?

If you complete the actions required in the Contract, your conviction will be spent. This means that in most circumstances you will not have to tell anyone about it, nor will most other people have a right to know about it. [The only exception is if you are applying for certain jobs – for example, working with children.] In this way the Referral Order is different from other Court Orders, which can stay live on your record for much longer.

Remember – if you do offend again you will go straight back to Court and may not get another chance at a Referral Order.