Issue 438  21st February 2026

Hate crimes which target people on the grounds of their sexuality or gender identity, or a disability, are set to become aggravated offences under a proposed new law. An amendment to the Crimes and Policing Bill will mean a crime is aggravated if a victim is targeted because of those characteristics, and will carry a higher penalty. The LGBT+ anti-abuse charity Galop described the amendment as a "landmark moment" for equality.

The bill, which is currently progressing through the House of Lords and is not yet law, is intended to introduce measures to tackle crime and antisocial behaviour and will apply to England and Wales. Currently, crimes found to include an element of hostility against a person's LGBT or disability status can be acknowledged with an "uplift", which increases the sentence on a broader charge such as assault. The new amendment will set them out as defined charges within their own right, which comes with a higher maximum sentencing penalty. It also brings them in line with race and religion, which already have defined charges, such as racially-aggravated disorderly behaviour...

The Serious Fraud Office has discovered another issue with its disclosure IT system - affecting some 20 long-running cases. The organisation said this week it noticed the latest issue, discovered in November 2025, as it neared the end of an earlier review of past cases on the legacy Autonomy Introspect system, which has now been replaced.

Some 20 cases may have been affected by the problem which relates to how some ‘digital container files were expanded’ on the e-discovery system, meaning some items may not have been available for review. Of those believed to have been affected, one has been resolved with no evidence of any material having been missed. The other cases are now under review. The SFO said the issue did not affect its current e-discovery system, OpenText Axcelerate... The version of Autonomy used by the SFO before it migrated to its new system had ‘specific rules that govern the way search terms had to be constructed to identify variations of the word being searched’. Last year, the SFO said it had identified 66 historical conviction cases in which the Autonomy system was used. A review has so far found no material which might cast doubt on the safety of any convictions, it said. Three cases remain to be reviewed...

Waste criminals will be detected and stopped before they even get started, thanks to a new package of surveillance and investigative measures announced by the Environment Agency (EA) today (Friday 20 February 2026). As part of a major crackdown on waste crime, an enhanced 33-strong drone squad will now track down illegal dumps from the air. The drones, some of which are being upgraded to carry laser mapping technology, will capture evidence to help secure successful prosecutions.  

The Environment Agency has also developed a new screening tool that enables EA officers to scan and cross-check lorry licence applications against waste permit records – with suspect operators flagged before they have a chance to move waste illegally. The new capabilities are backed by a reinforced Joint Unit for Waste Crime – now a 20-strong group of specialists working closely with law enforcement partners to dismantle organised criminal networks. This builds on a record year for waste enforcement, with 751 illegal waste sites shut down...

Miscarriages of justice are inevitable without urgent and ‘long overdue’ reforms to forensic science according to a House of Lords inquiry. In a report released today, the House of Lords Science and Technology Committee have condemned the state of forensics amid cases collapsing due to missing or damaged evidence, patchy police provision that lacks oversight from real scientists, and a backlog of 20,000 digital devices awaiting analysis. They say ‘creeping neglect’ of forensic science now resembles a ‘shocking abdication of responsibility’...

This latest report into the dire state of forensic science highlights ‘grave concerns’ about the inequality of arms between prosecution and defence. They say defence scrutiny of bad forensic science provides ‘crucial external checks’, yet the community of forensics experts that can be called on by defence teams is ‘underfunded, fragmented, varying in quality’ and faces significant administrative and financial barriers to taking part in many criminal trials. They say the fact that this bulwark against bad science has been allowed to ‘wither away’ risks further miscarriages of justice. Legal aid rates for defence expertise remain ‘too low’, and lower than the Crown Prosecution Service itself pays for the equivalent expertise...

Tech companies will be ordered to take down intimate images shared without a victim’s consent within 48 hours, under new laws to protect women and girls from this distressing abuse. Through an amendment to the Crime and Policing Bill, companies will be legally required to remove this content no more than 48 hours after it is flagged to them, and platforms that fail to act could face fines of up to 10% of their qualifying worldwide revenue or having their services blocked in the UK. The government is determined to make sure that victims will only need to report an image once. This would mean where an image is reported, they are removed across multiple platforms in one go, and from then on, they are automatically deleted at every new upload. As part of that work, plans are currently being considered by Ofcom for these kinds of images to be treated with the same severity as child sexual abuse and terrorism content, digitally marking them so that any time someone tries to repost them, they will be automatically taken down. In a further step to protect victims, we will publish guidance for internet providers setting out how they should block access to sites hosting this content, targeting rogue websites that may fall outside the reach of the Online Safety Act...

Criminal law practitioner groups have united to declare war on the government’s plans to curb jury trials at a meeting in which it emerged that a Labour MP vociferously opposed to the reforms is contemplating meeting justice secretary David Lammy halfway by suggesting a pilot. Representatives for the London Criminal Courts Solicitors’ Association, Criminal Law Solicitors’ Association and Criminal Bar Association confirmed their opposition to Lammy's controversial plan to cut the Crown court backlog at a meeting in London last night. LCCSA president Jason Lartey told the meeting that Lammy will reportedly be addressing parliament next Tuesday...

Lammy’s proposals would see jury trials axed for crimes with sentences of less than three years. However, former CBA chair Chris Henley KC said: ‘The idea that receiving a three-year sentence is not a big deal and can be done differently, then why have juries at all? When you’re facing a sentence of imprisonment that can change your life, will end your job prospects, end your marriage, change your relationship with your children, that is something we need to carefully think about.' During the highly-charged meeting, solicitors raised strike action, declining to take instructions, lobbying MPs and contacting Law Society Council members to voice concern about supporting any compromise. It was also suggested lawyers protest outside the Old Bailey, where there is a plaque commemorating jurors in Bushell's case. Jurors in the 1670 case refused to give a verdict against the defendants despite being locked up without food for two nights and were fined for their final 'not guilty' verdict... The LCCSA, CLSA and CBA issued a joint statement to declare a united front against Lammy's proposed reforms. 'We will soon be calling a day of action to protest the proposals outside the Old Bailey and coordinating our members to take further measures to challenge the reforms,' the statement says...