Tough love from Woolf and Orchard boosts confidence

Lord Woolf's tough stance on street crime sentencing - with his advice to lock up mobile phone thieves - seems to have excited those charged with the responsibility of catching them in the first place.Metropolitan Police commissioner Sir John Stevens 'wants specialtribunals to be set up with powers to lock up hardened young criminals indefinitely' (Sunday Telegraph,10 February) - hardened young criminals being, specifically, 'a new breed of young thugs [who have] emerged during the past five years, with no fear of the police, and no fear of the prospect of prison'.The solution to this lack of fear is, apparently, to lock up the 'thugs' and throw away the key - or more accurately 'to try them at special tribunals' and 'give them indeterminate sentences, forcing them to improve their behaviour and further their education before they are released'.Human rights group Liberty, unsurprisingly, expressed concern and warned that 'defendants must know how long they will serve in an institution'.Earlier in the week though, both the tough and tender sides of Lord Woolf showed through in a speech to the Prison Service's annual conference (The Independent, 6 February).His proposal that judges should be given powers to order the release of prisoners before they have served half their sentences 'goes even further than that of Home Secretary David Blunkett, who discussed plans for part-time prisoners this week'.Lord Woolf - who also urged courts to make more use of community sentences - said judges could help cut the rate of reoffending and lighten the load of prisons by having a direct role in the rehabilition of prisoners.At the same time, he was pleased by the publicity surrounding his mobile phone pronouncement: 'For violent crime, at the present time, to reduce sentences would be to undermine further the public's confidence in the criminal justice system.'If its plans to curb the thuggish excesses fail, the Met could do worse than to call on the services of 'the strongman of legal aid', Legal Services Commission chief executive Steve Orchard, profiled in The Times (5 February).

Described as 'a hatchetman with the blunt manner to match', The Times nevertheless painted a glowing picture of the man who has 'had the greatest influence of any single individual on the shape of legal services over the last 13 years'.An unashamed tough nut, who 'regularly took on and savaged solicitors at conferences as they protested at the reforms', he came across as refreshingly honest, readily admitting that 'bureaucracy is always going to accompany publicly funded work, because in private practice you don't have to do a means test, explain the statutory charge, apply to the commission for a certificate or produce a detailed bill'.Ever the optimist, however, he 'has a nose for what needs to be done' and legal aid lawyers will hope he means it when he says that 'red tape can - and should - be cut...

We cannot afford to be complacent'.The notion that all publicity is good publicity is probably not doing much for morale at London law firm Charles Russell, which, according to reports, has settled the discrimination claim brought by a departing black secretary after a solicitor sent an e-mail requesting her to be replaced by a 'busty blonde' (The Independent, 6 February).

The firm, one report said, was 'keen to settle the case before it came to a tribunal'.'The case is believed to be the first sex and race discrimination settlement involving an offensivee-mail,' The Independent said.

'But lawyers said yesterday they expected many more to follow as employees became more aware of their right under data protection legislation to see all e-mails written about them.'The confidential settlement was said by 'informed sources' to be no more than 10,000, and Russell Jones & Walker lawyer Celia Grace speculated in the London Evening Standard (7 February) that it was probably not much more than 5,000.

'She had already resigned when the e-mail was sent, and we are really talking about damages for hurt feelings.'The Standard said the case has 'sent a frisson through City firms - many have warned staff that e-mails are not private and doubtful messages must not be sent'.Victoria MacCallum