TEMPERS may have cooled a little this week. But the “soft” sentencing furore has left its mark. Judges are feeling doubly under siege: from the media and from ministers. Judges who sit on the Parole Board are also under fire: “Apparently we dole out pathetically inadequate sentences and then without a thought let out all dangerous offenders at the earliest opportunity,” one said.

In answer to questions from The Times, an informal “focus group” of circuit judges has given a glimpse of what they think of the controversy. And it shows that feelings still run high.

Outrage persists over the “naming and shaming” by The Sun of “soft” judges — and legal action is not ruled out. Judges say: “We view it as disgraceful and distressing to the judges concerned. We are appalled by the tone of the reporting.”

But the real target of their fury is the Home Secretary and the Constitutional Affairs Minister, Vera Baird, QC, both of whom said a judge was “wrong” when he sentenced a paedophile to life — with a minimum five years before he can be considered for release. The judge has since been widely defended as having followed the law and its constraints to the letter.

One judge said: “People are absolutely seething. John Reid and Vera Baird broke every convention in the book concerning the independence of the judiciary and ministerial interference. Their comments have far more serious implications than the sentences passed by the judges, because they have departed from their constitutional role and should consider resigning.”

Judges accept that politicians have a right to comment on sentencing levels in general and to legislate to increase those levels. The Sentencing Guidelines Council was set up with just that in mind, so that politicians and the public could feed advice in to judges. Some also agree that media comment on individual sentences is legitimate. But they are angry when the attacks are based on misunderstandings or wrong information. And personal attacks on the individuals, as the Lord Chief Justice put it, will only damage public confidence in the judiciary as a whole.

So what can be done? Judges back the Lord Chancellor’s proposal for a complete sentencing review. “We generally complain of an excess of legislation but we would welcome legislation that repeals all earlier provisions and brings all sentencing powers under one Act. We would also particularly encourage a move to make all sentencing simpler and understandable.” Above all, they would like more discretion: the legislative straitjacket is the cause of many of the current problems.

One said: “Of course, sometimes judges will pass a batty sentence, but this can be referred to the Court of Appeal and if a sentence passed in exercise of free discretion is clearly off the wall — an absolute discharge for child rape — then The Sun could rightly ask for a sacking.”

Sentencing is now a minefield. It is not only the public who cannot grasp how judges reach their sentences or what they mean in reality. Judges also struggle: one confessed that he had resigned as a recorder because “practice and procedure has become so complicated . . . that I no longer had any confidence in my ability to do the right thing.” He is not alone: “I do think that judges and recorders who do crime part-time are considering their positions.”

The present problems stem from the Criminal Justice Act 2003. But that Act is only the latest in a series, each adding a layer of complexity to sentencing, such as the Crime (Sentences) Act 1997 which created automatic life sentences. Then there are discounts for guilty pleas, 50 per cent off for determinate sentences — and time off already spent in custody.

Discretionary life sentences raise extra problems: judges perform the same exercise to reach a minimum tariff that the offender must serve before eligible for parole. But that minimum is the figure that sticks.

One judge said: “The public is not to blame for their concern. What understandably upsets crime victims is when they hear a judge send a defendant to prison for what appears to be a lengthy sentence and then spell out that in reality, the actual time in custody is or might be very short.”

Perhaps, one judge suggests, the Government should try honesty. “The whole sentencing, early release and eligibility for parole process has become a dishonest fraud on the public.” Sentences should bear relation to time served; and judges should have more discretion in setting discounts — although that in turn exposes them even more to attack. And when imposing life, judges should not set a tariff, but simply say: “You will go to prison for life and not be released until the Parole Board considers it safe for you to be released”, rather than as now: “Life, but the determinate sentence would have been 18 years, which reduces for a guilty plea to 12 years, then halve it, less remand time — five years.”

Both Lord Phillips of Worth Matravers and Lord Falconer of Thoroton have a platform at the Lord Mayor’s annual judges’ dinner next month: it would provide the perfect opportunity to rally the troops and remind ministers to keep off judicial lawns. This issue is not, judges emphasise, mere amour-propre. One senior serving judge, Judge George Bathurst-Norman, said last week: “The trouble is, if you go on for political reasons undermining the public’s faith in the judiciary, sooner or later you are heading for anarchy and . . . in due course for the equivalent of a police state.”

For ministers, too, it is — in Lord Woolf’s words — “an own goal” if public confidence in the judges falters. As for judges themselves, most will battle on until the next headline. But not all. One confessed: “I feel so grumpy about it all that I’ve had enough . . . I will throw my wig into the Thames and stagger, glass in hand, into the sunset.”

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