Issue 343  27th April 2024

The High Court has thrown out an application by the Solicitor General to prosecute a 69-year-old for contempt of court after she held up a sign about jurors’ rights. Mr Justice Saini dismissed the claim in its entirety. He stated that the law officer had brought a case that demonstrated a ‘mischaracterisation of what Miss [Trudi] Warner did’ as well as a ‘failure to recognise the placard said what is essentially regularly read by Old Bailey jurors’. Former social worker Warner was charged last year for holding a sign outside the trial of climate activists. She was described in court as a ‘human billboard’. Her placard said: ‘Jurors. You have an absolute right to acquit a defendant according to your conscience’. The sign referred to a marble plaque in the Old Bailey acknowledging jurors in the 1670 'Bushel’s case', in which a jury refused a judge’s direction to find the defendants guilty...

In his written judgment, Saini said the Solicitor General ‘does not have a reasonable basis in fact and law for pursuing these proceedings on the basis of the common law form of contempt’ adding that Warner’s conduct did not amount to an actionable contempt. Of the placard, the judge said it did not present ‘an "instruction or encouragement" or constitute a "plain invitation" to passers-by to discharge their duties in a particular way’. He said the text was ‘informative’ and ‘did not implore jurors to act or give an instruction’ but ‘simple communicated directly with jurors to summarise the principle of jury equity which is…indeed very similar to the Old Bailey plaque’...

Solicitors will act as ‘legal advocates’ to provide free legal advice and representation to alleged victims of rape under the Labour party’s plans to tackle violence against women and girls, the shadow lord chancellor pledged last night. Setting out a future Labour government's plans for justice, Shabana Mahmood MP said that rape victims will receive state-funded legal advice and representation to protect their rights as their cases go through the criminal justice process. Advice will be provided by a ‘local solicitor’ who will be ‘at hand in every police area in England and Wales. Mahmood, a former practising barrister, said that the solicitors will have ‘experience acting for vulnerable people’ and will be ‘trained on the specific challenges of rape cases’. The legal advocates, she said, will help victims exercise the right to review any decision made by the Crown Prosecution Service and assist them in challenging unnecessary and inappropriate requests for personal records. ‘We know this works because it has been tried and tested,’ said Mahmood...

To tackle the ‘failing’ justice system and backlog of 66,500 crown court cases, Mahmood said she would mix a ‘traditionalist’ approach with ‘radical’ ideas, and did not rule out limiting jury trials, as mooted recently by the lady chief justice, or considering judge-only trials for some cases. Mahmood did not pledge increased funding for legal aid, stating that she could not make unfunded proposals. But, in these ‘perilous times’, she said that if she becomes justice secretary in a Labour government, she will be a ‘champion of our legal industry’. She pledged to work with the Treasury to ‘ensure our legal services are a growth sector’ and to seek a ‘renewed partnership for the legal sector’...

The senior judiciary has decided that all free-standing bail applications, where the defendant is not to attend, will now be heard remotely, unless the court orders otherwise. This is designed to facilitate the speedy and efficient bringing and disposal of such applications... This will apply to the Crown Court and will take effect from Monday 29th April 2024.

New legislation to provide extra protections for victims’ counselling notes during criminal investigations received government backing today. The amendment to the landmark Victims and Prisoners Bill, tabled by Baroness Bertin, will require the police to be satisfied that counselling information is likely to add substantial value to their investigation before they request a victim’s records. It will also provide further protections in the new statutory Code of Practice, which will state clearly that police must start with an assumption that a request for counselling notes is not necessary and proportionate to their investigation.

The move will give greater confidence to victims – particularly those of sexual assault - in seeking the therapy they need to help move forward with their lives, without fear that information revealed in absolute trust will be used against them...

It will be easier for police to protect victims and apply for a stalking protection order at the earliest opportunity under new plans announced today (Monday 22 April) by the Minister for Victims and Safeguarding, marking the first day of National Stalking Awareness Week. Under updated statutory guidance, published today, police officers are instructed that they will no longer need to meet the high criminal standard of proof threshold in order to apply for a stalking protection order. Instead evidence which meets the lower civil standard will likely be accepted by courts to apply a stalking protection order.

Stalking protection orders were introduced in January 2020 and protect victims by addressing the perpetrator’s behaviours before they become entrenched or become more severe. Under the orders, perpetrators can face restrictions such as having to notify the police of their whereabouts or travel. If breached, an individual faces prison time of up to 5 years...

A sex offender convicted of making more than 1,000 indecent images of children has been banned from using any “AI creating tools” for the next five years in the first known case of its kind. Anthony Dover, 48, was ordered by a UK court “not to use, visit or access” artificial intelligence generation tools without the prior permission of police as a condition of a sexual harm prevention order imposed in February. The ban prohibits him from using tools such as text-to-image generators, which can make lifelike pictures based on a written command, and “nudifying” websites used to make explicit “deepfakes”.

The case is the latest in a string of prosecutions where AI generation has emerged as an issue and follows months of warnings from charities over the proliferation of AI-generated sexual abuse imagery. Last week, the government announced the creation of a new offence that makes it illegal to make sexually explicit deepfakes of over-18s without consent. Those convicted face prosecution and an unlimited fine. If the image is then shared more widely offenders could be sent to jail. Creating, possessing and sharing artificial child sexual abuse material was already illegal under laws in place since the 1990s, which ban both real and “pseudo” photographs of under-18s. In previous years, the law has been used to prosecute people for offences involving lifelike images such as those made using Photoshop...

Britain’s biggest businesses are being urged by the government to recruit prison leavers as part of a national campaign, supported by KPMG UK, to reduce reoffending and grow the economy. The professional services firm – as part of a new pilot programme – has become the first white collar British business to employ ex-offenders as part of a government partnership. This is in addition to their wider efforts to support and retrain prisoners whilst in jail. Having successfully employed their first cohort of prison leavers in a range of different roles, including technology development, they are now working with the Ministry of Justice to encourage other big-name businesses to follow suit. Not only does this grow the economy and help fill some of the estimated one million vacancies in the UK job market, but it also helps secure employment which keeps former offenders on the straight and narrow, helping tackle the £18 billion annual cost of reoffending and cut crime...