‘The Supreme Court is not keen to entertain appeals on procedural points, its annual report has indicated. It handled 23 permissions to appeal (PTA) applications in relation to procedure in the year to 31 March 2019 – far more than any other category of law – and only granted permission in one of them.’
Litigation Futures, 11th June 2019
Source: www.litigationfutures.com
‘Speech by the Right Honourable Lady Justice Rafferty to the Criminal Law Review Conference.’
Courts and Tribunals Judiciary, 12th December 2018
Source: www.judiciary.gov
‘Failure to disclose vital evidence is the biggest single cause of miscarriages of justice and the problem is getting worse, the outgoing chairman of the Criminal Cases Review Commission (CCRC) has said.’
The Guardian, 11th October 2018
Source: www.theguardian.com
‘The High Court has dismissed a challenge to a decision by Thames Valley Police that, regarding the conduct of Oxfordshire County Council, there was insufficient evidence to meet the Crown Prosecution Service’s threshold so as to justify criminal proceedings against anyone.’
Local Government Lawyer, 9th October 2018
Source: www.localgovernmentlawyer.co.uk
‘A British prisoner is seeking a judicial review because he says he does not have a fair chance of parole following the controversy surrounding the decision to release the serial sex attacker John Worboys.’
The Guardian, 26th July 2018
Source: www.theguardian.com
‘The Crown Prosecution Service and the National Police Chiefs Council have today (20 July) issued a joint response into the Justice Select Committee Report over Disclosure of evidence in criminal cases.’
Crown Prosecution Service, 20th July 2018
Source: www.cps.gov.uk
‘Complainants in rape cases are being subjected to invasive and unfair questioning about their sexual history, according to a cross-party campaign supporting tighter restrictions on cross-examination in trials.’
The Guardian, 29th January 2018
Source: www.theguardian.com
‘The failings which have lead to a nationwide review of all live rape and serious sexual assault cases were caused by police forces and prosecutors not carrying out “basic” procedure, the Attorney General has suggested.’
Daily Telegraph, 27th January 2018
Source: www.telegraph.co.uk
‘Two years on, how have collective efforts to make every court hearing count evolved? Peter Hungerford-Welch summarises the procedural changes and the message from case law.’
Counsel, October 2017
Source: www.counselmagazine.co.uk
‘A High Court judge has said he will refuse to allow alleged domestic abusers to cross examine their victims in any future hearings he oversees.’
Law Society's Gazette, 31st May 2017
Source: www.lawgazette.co.uk
‘The term “McKenzie friend” is not appropriate in the criminal division of the Court of Appeal, the vice-president of the court has said in a ruling detailing the problems that the increasing number of “unqualified third parties” is causing.’
Legal Futures, 26th May 2017
Source: www.legalfutures.co.uk
‘Government introduces new pre-charge bail limit of 28 days as part of the Policing and Crime Act, which comes into effect today (Monday 3 April).’
Home Office, 3rd April 2017
Source: www.gov.uk/home-office
‘Interested members of the public will be able to view ‘virtual’ court hearings from purpose-built booths in court buildings, the Prisons and Courts Bill states. The proposal is an attempt to counter threats to open justice by a courts system increasingly operating digitally. Court listings and case results will also be published online, a factsheet published by the Ministry of Justice says.’
Law Society’s Gazette, 23rd February 2017
Source: www.lawgazette.co.uk
McPhee v The Queen [2016] UKPC 29
‘The defendant, a 17-year-old from Nassau, was arrested on a neighbouring island of The Bahamas on suspicion of murder following an armed robbery. He gave his mother’s phone number in Nassau to the police but no contact with her was established and no lawyer was called. After more than 31 hours in custody, during which time the custody log showed he had been taken from his cell several times but without any record made of his being questioned, a church minister in his mid-seventies was asked to come to the police station to witness the defendant make a statement. The minister did not speak to the defendant alone nor offer him any advice, but observed that the defendant was hungry and gave the police money to buy him a meal, after which the defendant made a written statement under caution confessing to the murder. Apart from the confession the only evidence against the defendant was that of another defendant who became a prosecution witness during the trial. At trial, the defendant claimed that his statement had been made following torture and so was not admissible. The judge rejected the claim of torture but did not consider whether the taking of the defendant from his cells had been for the purpose of informal interrogation, or whether the minister could properly be said to have been acting as an “appropriate adult” for the witnessing of a juvenile’s confession, and allowed the confession to go before the jury. The defendant was convicted of murder. The conviction was upheld by the Court of Appeal of the Commonwealth of The Bahamas. The defendant appealed to the Privy Council on the grounds, inter alia, that the confession should have been excluded under section 20 of the Bahamas Evidence Act as being unreliable, by reason of the defendant having been subjected to unrecorded questioning in the absence of a lawyer or appropriate adult and in any event should have been excluded as unfair under section 178 of the Bahamas Evidence Act.’
WLR Daily, 24th October 2016
Source: www.iclr.co.uk
Criminal proceedings against Kossowski (Case C-486/14)
‘The accused fled from Germany to Poland after being accused of committing a criminal offence in Germany, and a criminal investigation was initiated against him in that state. The Polish authorities subsequently arrested the accused with a view to the enforcement of a term of imprisonment to which he had been sentenced in Poland in a different case. Subsequently, the Polish authorities opened an investigation procedure against the accused, accusing him of an offence based on his actions in Germany but decided eventually to terminate the criminal proceedings for lack of sufficient evidence. The Higher Regional Court, Hamburg, hearing an appeal brought by the Hamburg Public Prosecutor’s Office against that decision, took the view that under the German law, the evidence against the accused was sufficient to justify the opening of trial proceedings before the Regional Court, Hamburg, and the acceptance of the indictment for the purposes of those proceedings, unless that was barred by the principle of ne bis in idem (protection from multiple prosecutions in different member states) laid down in article 54 of the Convention Implementing the Schengen Agreement of 14 June 1985 between the Governments of the States of the Benelux Economic Union, the Federal Republic of Germany and the French Republic on the gradual abolition of checks at their common borders (1995) (OJ 2000 L239, p 19) (the “CISA”) and article 50 of the Charter of Fundamental Rights of the European Union. Accordingly, the Hamburg court referred to the Court of Justice of the European Union for a preliminary ruling a number of questions on the interpretation of those provisions.’
WLR Daily, 30th June 2016
Source: www.iclr.co.uk
‘Virtual reality technology used in the gaming industry could be adapted to recreate crime scenes for juries, researchers have claimed.’
BBC News, 24th May 2016
Source: www.bbc.co.uk
‘The main aim of this Compendium is to provide guidance on directing the jury in Crown Court trials and when sentencing, though it contains some practical suggestions in other areas, for example jury management, which it is hoped will be helpful..’
Courts and Tribunals Judiciary, 10th May 2016
Source: www.judiciary.gov.uk
© Inner Temple Library 2024