It’s funny how things change as the years pass by. Perhaps only ten years ago, if we were thinking about particular spikes in alleged criminal offending over the Christmas period, the one that would jump out would always be drunk driving. These days it is common to come across drug driving due to advances in … Continued
The Ministry of Justice has announced emergency measures that will see some people who ought to be in prison instead placed in police cells. The capacity pressure is specific to the adult male estate, and there is ample capacity in the women’s and youth estates. There are currently about 83,000 people in prisons At the … Continued
It is now commonplace for us to be asked to deal with cases where a person is accused of a crime, most commonly of a sexual nature, which is said to have occurred many decades earlier. Not surprisingly, those accused will wonder how they can be expected to properly defend themselves after such … Continued
Police recorded crime figures in 2021/22 show that there were 155,841 offences where one or more of the centrally monitored hate crime strands were deemed to be a motivating factor. This represented a 26% increase on figures for 2020/21. Since April 2015, there have been spikes for racial or religiously aggravated hate crimes … Continued
On 3 November 2022, Glencore Energy (UK) Limited was sentenced to financial penalties totalling some £280 million. Glencore was charged on indictment with seven counts under the Bribery Act 2010. Glencore pleaded guilty to all seven counts on 21 June 2022 before the Honorary Recorder of Westminster. Counts 1 to 5 are bribery offences, … Continued
Changes to pre-charge bail arrangements and the current system of “release under investigation” are expected to come into force in November 2022 when schedule 4 of the Police, Crime, Sentencing And Courts Act 2022 is commenced. The current system An individual who has been arrested by the police but who has not yet been charged … Continued
HM Prison & Probation Service launched an electronic tagging programme to improve efficiency and increase the usefulness of tagging for police and probation services, but after significant setbacks and delays the failure has cost taxpayers dear. Tagging allows the police, courts, probation and immigration services to monitor offenders’ locations and compliance with court orders, and … Continued
Given the complexity of many criminal trials, it is inevitable that, from time to time, something will go wrong. A witness may give inadmissible evidence; the jury was shown something they ought not to have seen, or a judge or advocate making an inappropriate comment. When mistakes happen, all parties will wish to consider … Continued
General deterrence raises some of the oldest questions in criminology. A general deterrent effect would occur where a disposal makes other potential offenders less likely to offend. General deterrence is said to depend on three main factors which have been explored in recent research published by the Sentencing Council: the certainty that an offender … Continued
Given we are criminal defence lawyers we interact with police on a regular basis, but perhaps without thinking too much about the office of police constable and what it entails. Every police officer, irrespective of rank hold the office of police constable. The office dates back to ancient times and the practice of each local … Continued
When sentencing for offences of assault, the use of a weapon will always be an aggravating feature. The sentencing guideline also refers explicitly to “highly dangerous weapons” and will be treated as a particularly serious feature of the offending. In a recent case before the Court of Appeal, the court was considering whether a … Continued
In a recent case (Spivey [2022] EWCA Crim 997) a Judge was faced with offenders who had just turned 18 years of age. When sentencing, he made the following observation: “I do have in mind the guidelines in relation to sentencing children and young people.” However, he concluded that as one of the appellants … Continued
