CHANGES to guidelines that allow more lenient sentences to be handed down to criminals from deprived backgrounds has been slammed as “complete nonsense” by senior Tory MP Sir Philip Davies.

The changes, which came into force today, means that judges and magistrates can give more lenient sentences to criminals with low education attainment or from difficult or deprived backgrounds.

Sir Philip told GB News: “In effect what we’re saying here is that we’ll be sending a burglar to jail for a lower sentence because they were in care as a toddler, or they had a run-in with teachers when they were ten-years-old. It’s complete nonsense.

“First of all, it’s patronising to people from poor backgrounds…but it’s worse than people might think. Some people might think somebody who’s poor, they’ve gone in and done some shoplifting, that poverty should be taken into account when they’re being censured.

“I can understand why some people might think that, but poverty surely shouldn’t be taken into account when they commit a rape, or they commit a murder, or anything like that.”

In a discussion with Nana Akua and Ben Leo, he continued: “It makes it clear that somebody who is pregnant should be treated more favourably by the courts.

“What you’re going to find, and you already get this to a certain extent, you’re going to have more and more people, women who commit a serious offence, are going to deliberately get themselves pregnant.

“I’ve seen it happen already. They are committing the crime and being sentenced because they know it will come with a lesser sentence. That cannot be right.”

He added: “Judges and magistrates are told that they’ve got to act without fear or favour, affection, or ill will. These new guidelines are making sure that we are anything but equal before the law, as far as I’m concerned.

“It’s a complete outrage. These unelected bunch of judges and do-gooders on the Sentencing Council need to be put back in their box.”