All Criminal justice articles – Page 139
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News
Rehabilitation reforms treat women as ‘afterthought’ – MPs
Women offenders are an afterthought in the government’s rehabilitation reforms, the House of Commons justice committee suggested today. Six years after the Corston Report, which recommended that only the most serious female offenders be jailed, the committee said that the women’s prison population has not fallen sufficiently quickly and that ...
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News
Society warns against jailing ‘reckless’ bankers
New criminal sanctions that would jail senior bankers for ‘reckless misconduct’ will not stop banks failing or help to promote economic growth, the Law Society said today. Chancery Lane’s warning comes as the government is accused of watering down proposals made last month by the parliamentary commission on banking standards. ...
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News
UK will bid to rejoin watered-down European arrest warrant
The government is to exercise its opt-out of 135 European crime and justice measures pre-dating the 2007 Lisbon Treaty – but hopes to rejoin some 30, including the European arrest warrant and the law enforcement agency Europol, the home secretary said today. In a well-trailed statement to the House of ...
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News
Women being imprisoned unnecessarily, reformers say
Magistrates’ courts are sending fewer women to prison than in previous years but some courts are four times more likely to jail women than others, according to figures obtained by the Howard League for Penal Reform. Research by the charity reveals that although the overall number of women being sent ...
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News
Sir John Thomas will be next lord chief justice
Sir John Thomas is to succeed Lord Judge as lord chief justice, Number 10 Downing Street confirmed today. Thomas was chosen over the two other applicants – Lady Justice Hallett, who is currently Thomas’s deputy at the Queen’s Bench Division and who chaired the 7/7 London bombing inquest; and Lord ...
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News
'Little hope' for sole practitioners in criminal defence
There is ‘little hope for the future’ for sole practitioners and many small law firms under either the government’s or Law Society’s proposals for reshaping the criminal defence market, the Sole Practitioners Group has claimed. The group’s legal aid spokesperson, former chair Hilary Underwood, told the Gazette that under either ...
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NewsA song and dance over Europe
I preferred to be a wall-flower last week rather than join in the wild and shameless hokey cokey led by the government over the decision both to opt out and then opt back in to various EU criminal law measures. We will opt out of 135 and opt back in ...
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News
Lack of demand shuts first one-stop shop for offenders
England’s first ‘all in one’ court and offender treatment centre is set for closure due to under-use, the justice minister announced today. Helen Grant announced a six-week consultation on plans to shut North Liverpool Community Justice Centre and move its work and the principles of its problem-solving approach to Sefton ...
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News
EC unveils European public prosecutor plan
A European Public Prosecutor’s Office will tackle the annual loss to fraud of £431m of EU funds according to proposals published by the European Commission yesterday. The proposed office will follow up every case of suspected fraud against the EU budget. This will have a strong deterrent effect, the EC ...
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Opinion
'Posturing' on victim levy
How right Joshua Rozenberg is to pour scorn on the legerdemain of the Ministry of Justice over levying the victim surcharge. This has been brought into effect irrespective of any of the philosophical underpinning or due process safeguards applying to all other financial sanctions. ‘Looking tough’ in this way is ...
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News
Political storm over Strasbourg whole life ruling
Ministers have condemned the decision by Strasbourg that whole life sentences breach human rights, suggesting that the role of the European Court of Human Rights should be ‘curtailed’. The attack follows the final ruling of the court yesterday that whole life imprisonment of murderer Jeremy Bamber and two others breached ...
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News
Criminal bar chair backs Law Society’s stance on legal aid
The chairman of the Criminal Bar Association has called for unity in the profession and attempted to quell ‘disquiet’ over the Law Society’s decision to share with the Ministry of Justice its proposals for an alternative to price-competitive tendering (PCT). In his weekly online comment, Michael Turner QC said that ...
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News
Privilege fears over deferred prosecutions
The Crown Prosecution Service has used new draft guidelines on deferred prosecution agreements (DPAs) to weaken the privileged status of legal advice, a leading City fraud and investigations lawyer has warned. Simmons & Simmons partner Stephen Gentle told the Gazette: ‘The consultation on DPAs stated that the "Code of Practice ...
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News
I have seen the future and it didn't work
In autumn 2005, on a visit to the Home Office’s shiny new headquarters near Millbank, I enjoyed a demonstration of an all-singing, all-dancing joined-up criminal justice IT system. The ‘walk through’ was to show off a £2bn programme to join up police forces, prosecutors, the courts and prison and probation ...
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Opinion
Let us record proceedings
Having just spent another couple of days frantically scribbling notes of the evidence being given and the judgment, I am again at a loss to understand why the lawyers involved in proceedings are not allowed to record them electronically. It is quite ridiculous that we should have to make a ...
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Law Report
Appeal
Criminal law – Appeal against conviction – Witness intimidation – Charge arising from messages defendant sent to victim through Facebook R v ZN: Court of Appeal, Criminal Division: 18 June 2013 In June 2011, following a party the night before at a flat, the defendant's friends, CM and JC, visited ...
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News
Solicitors warned following breach of confidentiality
The Court of Appeal has censured two solicitors and a barrister after an embargoed draft judgment was disclosed to third parties in breach of a court order. At the end of a hearing where the Crown unsuccessfully appealed against a ruling to stay criminal proceedings against Telford delivery driver Noshad ...
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News
CPS under fire for failures in two serious cases
The Crown Prosecution Service has been criticised by two separate Crown court judges after sending an ‘incompetent’ advocate to prosecute a murder trial and for ‘lamentable failures’ that delayed a rape trial. In the first case, judge Richard Griffith-Jones, sitting at Warwick, ordered an investigation after a murder trial had ...
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News
MPs demand an end to interpreters contract
A parliamentary debate last week heard calls for the ‘shambolic’ court interpreters contract to be scrapped, as the service continues to miss performance targets. During a debate on the Commons Justice Committee’s damning report on the contract, shadow justice minister Andy Slaughter cited a press report about a Lithuanian interpreter ...
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Law Report
Sentence
Defendant being sentenced to 12 months' imprisonment following breaches of community order – Judge failing to direct on number of days spent on remand and bail with conditions would count towards service of sentence