Criminals should serve the full sentence handed down by judges to bolster faith in the criminal justice system, Britain’s first Victims’ Champion said yesterday.

Sara Payne called for clearer sentencing so that victims knew exactly how long a person would serve and when they would be freed from jail.

She condemned as unacceptable the fact that some criminal offences are being treated as antisocial behaviour instead of being prosecuted in court.

She was joined yesterday by Gordon Brown at the Ditton Community Centre in Widnes, Cheshire, where they met people who have suffered from antisocial behaviour, as well as support workers who help them.

Ms Payne, whose daughter Sarah was murdered by Roy Whiting in 2000, said that the criminal justice system should be remodelled to focus more closely on victims.

Her comments on sentencing were all the more controversial because they brought attention on how most criminals rarely serve the jail term to which they are sentenced. Ms Payne said she felt strongly that an offender should serve the sentence given by the courts.

The report said: “If an offender is sentenced to 12 years it is reasonable for anyone viewing that sentence to expect an offender to be in custody for 12 years. The reality is that the offender is likely to be released after serving half that sentence but be subject to recall to prison. The offenders may also be eligible for home leave and therefore possibly be in the locality of a victim seven years before the victim expected them to be.

“Put simply, the sentence the victim hears handed down by the judge must be the sentence that is served.”

Under present arrangements an offender given a sentence of a fixed number of years is released automatically after half the term. The rest is served under Probation Service supervision in the community.

Offenders serving up to four years are eligible for even earlier release under two schemes brought in by Labour to ease prison overcrowding.

An offender given a six-month sentence could serve just six weeks once the automatic release and early release provisions are allowed for.

Ms Payne’s report won support from police and victims’ groups. Lyn Costello, the co-founder of Mothers Against Murder and Aggression, said: “If we had clarity in sentencing it would help. If you give people 12 years and they are automatically out after six, it does not to help the confidence of the general public in the system.”

Simon Reed, the vice-chairman of the Police Federation of England and Wales, said: “Ms Payne is also right to highlight the inadequacy of the sentencing structure whereby victims of crime are fooled into thinking that justice has been delivered only to discover that the folly of mid-term release and leniency means the actual sentence served is radically less than the sentence given.”

A Ministry of Justice spokesman said: “The Government agrees that is important for victims, offenders and the public to understand the effect of sentencing. That is why we have placed statutory obligations on judges and magistrates to explain, in ordinary language, the effect of the sentences they pass.”

A statement from the Judicial Communications Office said that Ms Payne had made some interesting proposals and recognised that a significant number of areas merited further examination and research.

Times Recommends

• Postmen: We bind the nation together
• Tewkesbury: when the memories flood back
• Cast Offs actress: I’m happy that my face fits