In Focus

 

A Metropolitan Police employee but not a "public officer"

In a recent case before Southwark Crown Court, R v Pearce , which concerned two counts of misconduct in public office, HHJ Baumgartner found that a Metropolitan Police (MPS) employee was not a “public officer” within the meaning of the law. The...

Time to Go

The latest available figures at the time of writing point to the estate for male prisoners in England and Wales being at near full capacity; approximately 99%. In order to ease the burden of our overcrowded prisons, between October 2023 and June 2025...

Representing Neurodivergent Defendants

Those working in the criminal justice system (CJS) and directly with defendants will be familiar with the shock, uncertainty, and fear that can accompany prosecution. For neurodiverse defendants, the court process can be all the more confusing and stressful....

The Final Chapter

TOM HAYES AND CARLO PALOMBO: THE LIBOR/EURIBOR SAGA - THE FINAL CHAPTER Mr Hayes was the first person to be prosecuted by the SFO in connection with attempts to influence key benchmark rates of interest used in financial markets; in his case the...

Is a Defence Statement Evidence or Not?

In a case decided last year, the Court of Appeal upended the evidential status (as generally understood) of defence statements so significantly that every criminal practitioner will want to master the consequences. The case is R v Roehrig [2024] EWCA Crim...

Reforming POCA 2002: Making a Confiscation Order

In this major article,  Rudi Forston KC surveys the proposed changes to the PoCA regime to be brought about when and if the Crime and Policing Bill passes into law. The changes are significant. All criminal practitioners will be grateful for the...

Corporate Criminal Liability under the Crime and Policing Bill 2025: more confusion than clarity?

The Crime and Policing Bill 2025 creates a raft of new criminal offences from possession of blades, points, offensive blades weapons with intent, offences of child criminal exploitation, encouraging or assisting serious self -harm, concealing one’s...

Private investigations and data privacy - the ABI Code of Conduct for Investigative and Litigation Support Services

Those with long memories will remember the two reports published under the tenure of Richard Thomas, the then Information Commissioner, "What price privacy?" in May 2006 and "What price privacy now?" in December 2006.  The...

Levelling the Scales - Digital Evidence

In the not so distant past all advocacy in the Crown Court was effectively oral; witnesses were examined and cross-examined, documents were exhibited and speeches made.  There was no difference between how the prosecution and defence cases were...

Fitness to Plead

It has been said that the peculiarities of the fitness to plead regime can cause practitioners to question their own sanity.  This article seeks to summarise the fundamentals. The Law – a good place to start The starting point is the Criminal...

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