The EBS had a number of aims including reducing the incidence of breaches of bail conditions, failure to appear for court hearings and offending on bail. This chapter examines findings in relation to these aims as well as in terms of compliance with bail support. It also explores the outcomes of bail support periods. Data were collated from bail support files so it only includes incidents known to the EBS and is likely to underestimate the non-compliance events. Just over half (n=354, 54%) of EBS cases ended when defendants were sentenced. In other cases, bail support periods were completed when defendants were breached (n=95, 27%), allegedly committed new offences (n=89, 13%), or because their bail was varied (n=79, 12%).

Two-fifths (n=267, 41%) of defendants were not known to have been breached or offended on bail while on the EBS. Three-fifths (n=388, 59%) of defendants either breached their bail conditions or were charged with an offence on bail. A tenth (n=34, 10%) of the group breached bail support, other conditions and had been charged with an offence committed while on bail while a fifth (n=74, 19%) had breached either bail support or other conditions and allegedly offended while on bail. A tenth (n=36, 9%) of defendants on EBS had breached both bail support and other conditions, but were not known to have offended while on bail. The mean time to breach of bail conditions was around a month. The mean time to alleged offending on bail was 42 days.

Breaches of bail conditions

Half (n=328, 50%) of defendants were known to have breached their bail conditions. Nearly a quarter (n=70, 23%) of this group breached both bail support and other bail conditions. Nearly half (n=138, 46%) breached bail support only with a further third (n=95, 31%) breaching bail conditions other than bail support. The mean time to breach was similar for breaches of bail support at around one month.

Breach of bail support

Nearly a third (n=208, 32%) of defendants were known to have breached bail support. The majority (n=157, 75%) breached it once. Nearly all (n=255, 96%) breaches of bail support were for failing to attend appointments.