Service restraining orders
Section 229: Service restraining orders
457.This section enables the Court Martial and the SCC to make an order similar to a restraining order under the Protection from Harassment Act 1997, on convicting or acquitting a person of an offence. The order prohibits the defendant from doing specified things for a fixed period or until further order. It can only be made for the purpose of protecting a person from harassment. Breach of the order (without reasonable excuse) is a service offence punishable with five years’ imprisonment.
Section 230: Service restraining orders: supplementary
458.Subsection (1) applies the interpretation provisions of the Protection from Harassment Act 1997 for the purposes of section 229.
459.Subsection (2) applies section 12 of that Act, which prevents conduct from being treated as a breach of a restraining order if it is certified to have related to national security, the UK’s economic well-being or the prevention or detection of serious crime. “Serious crime” is extended for this purpose so as to include serious service offences and serious crime under the law of other countries.
460.Subsection (3) enables the CMAC, on allowing an appeal against conviction, to send the case back to the Court Martial so that that court can consider whether to make a restraining order.
Section 231: Service restraining orders: appeals
461.This section enables a person to appeal against the making of a service restraining order where he was acquitted, or where the order was made after he had successfully appealed against conviction. The section does not deal with cases where the order is made on conviction, since there is a right of appeal in such cases in any event.
Section 232: Service restraining orders: variation and revocation
462.This section enables the Court Martial to vary or revoke a service restraining order on an application, and enables the Court Martial or the SCC to do so on convicting the person against whom it was made of an offence under section 229.
