Gutted criminal with a purpose for part of sentence (6)
I believe the answer is:
clause
'part of sentence' is the definition.
(I've seen this before)
'gutted criminal with a purpose for' is the wordplay.
'gutted' says to hollow out the word (remove centre letters) (to gut something is to remove its insides).
'with' says to put letters next to each other.
'purpose for' becomes 'use' (I can't justify this - if you can you should give a lot more credence to this answer).
'criminal' with its centre taken out is 'cl'.
'cl'+'a'+'use'='CLAUSE'
Can you help me to learn more?
(Other definitions for clause that I've seen before include "Separate item in contract" , "Single part in contract or treaty" , "Joker, say" , "Proviso" , "Bill's article" .)