Issue 437  14th February 2026

The Home Office's decision to proscribe Palestine Action under anti-terrorism legislation was unlawful, the High Court has ruled. But the group remains banned for now to allow for further legal arguments and to give the government time to consider an appeal. In a massive blow to the government, three senior judges said that, while Palestine Action uses criminality to promote its aims, its activities had not crossed the very high bar to make it a terrorist organisation. Home Secretary Shabana Mahmood said the government would appeal against the court's decision, adding she was "disappointed" by the judgment. The decision means that while the group has successfully challenged the ban, expressing support for Palestine Action or taking part in its activities remains a serious criminal offence. A critical issue in the case was whether the ban was impacting the rights of others to protest in support of Palestinian issues, according to the ruling...

After the judgment, the Metropolitan Police said it would not arrest people for expressing support for Palestine Action until court proceedings are fully concluded. But it stressed that despite the "unusual circumstances", expressing support is "still a criminal offence" and officers will continue to gather evidence of any offences. The proscription made membership of or support for Palestine Action illegal, and more than 2,000 people have been arrested at demonstrations in the months since it came into force. Some 694 of the protesters have been charged with allegedly showing support for the group, which can lead to up to six months in jail...

‘Video vans’ and private companies operating video facilities in police stations have been proposed as a way of cutting ‘unnecessary’ journeys to court. The suggestions, from prisoner escort and custody services (PECS) contractor SERCO were made during a Justice for All event organised by the City of London last week. They follow Sir Brian Leveson’s recommendations for improving efficiency, which include remote hearings and allowing vehicles to use bus lanes when they are transporting prisoners...

Graham Blair, director of growth and strategy for SERCO justice and immigration, told last week's event at the Old Bailey: ‘In our prisoner escort and court custody service we see high volume of prison capacity issues continuing to increase the underlying court journeys. The accused are facing longer transfers to and from trials and hearings and some would argue many of those should be deemed unnecessary anyway, many should not.’ He said the company had ideas for cutting unnecessary journeys. ‘For instance, let’s consider the police station to court moves. We do 6,000 of these every month. 70% of these cases on average are released at court.’ Remote hearings would remove the need for such journeys, he said...

Blair said: ‘Is it too radical to ask why can’t the PECS staff operate video facilities in the police station so that only those third who are remanded have to physically travel in the sweatbox?’ He said the benefits were ‘endless’ including ‘less vehicles required, less congestion, less pollution, less security risk, less costs, more PECS staff available to support the Crown court…less police officer time spent travelling to and waiting at the court’... ‘We could provide and staff secure mobile facilities that could go to the police stations. We are driving a van there in the first place, anyway. We call these “video vans”, guaranteed connectivity delivering the appropriate experience both for the accused and the court. I am talking about the Royal arms, a uniformed dock officer – everything visible on the screen... The video van concept can be expanded to include vulnerable witnesses. The pilot we did 10 years ago worked seamlessly [with] positive feedback from the court and the witness.’ Blair also suggested ‘large mobile fully managed courtrooms can tour regions much like a mobile library or a cancer screening facility reducing the backlog and offering access to justice’...

Campaigners are urging ministers to change the law so that music lyrics are inadmissible in court, a shift that they say would stop a practice that disproportionately affects young black men and criminalises creativity. At present, police can produce lyrics written by defendants, and even flag an appearance in the background of a music video, as evidence that a suspect is affiliated with a gang or involved in criminality.

Campaign groups want a change to the victims and courts bill, which is currently making its way through parliament, to stop police from being able to present lyrics as evidence except when they are “literal, rather than figurative or fictional”. The amendment, which is being tabled by Baroness Shami Chakrabarti and has support from Baroness Doreen Lawrence, is due to be debated in the Lords this week. Chakrabarti told the Guardian: “We’re in a ridiculous position at present where somebody’s musical taste is somehow probative of their criminal intent. It is like saying that my love of Francis Ford Coppola’s The Godfather makes me a mobster. It’s extraordinary.” She is hopeful the amendment will be supported by the deputy prime minister, David Lammy. The amendment was drafted by Keir Monteith KC, who is part of the Art Not Evidence campaign group, which has argued that lyrics should not be read literally and are often entirely false, exaggerated or simply part of artistic expression...

The Ministry of Justice has cautioned against proposed statutory safeguards to limit the use of creative or artistic expression in criminal proceedings – telling peers yesterday that the government will await the outcome of a Crown Prosecution Service consultation before deciding next steps. Human rights lawyer Baroness Chakrabarti (Shami Chakrabarti) tabled an amendment to the Victims and Courts Bill which imposes stringent requirements for creative and artistic expression to be admissible in evidence amid concern that the use of rap and drill music by prosecutors is unfairly sweeping young black boys and men into the criminal justice system.

Several lawyers, including London Criminal Courts Solicitors’ Association president Jason Lartey, Criminal Bar Association chair Riel Karmy-Jones KC and civil liberties barrister Leslie Thomas KC, urged justice secretary David Lammy to back the proposed safeguards, which were debated in the Lords yesterday. Their intervention was coordinated by campaign group Art Not Evidence, supported by legal thinktank Justice. However, justice minister Baroness Levitt (Alison Levitt KC) told peers that while she understood the concerns, the amendment as currently drafted is ‘unduly restrictive’. The amendment ‘would, in effect, frustrate the ability of the Crown to adduce relevant and probative evidence before the court, with the potential consequences of frustrating justice for victims in some serious cases’, she added...

Britain’s top prosecutor has imposed a two-email limit on his lawyers when corresponding with police in an attempt to speed up charging decisions. Stephen Parkinson, the director of public prosecutions, has cited a “generational divide” as the reason for his action designed to encourage lawyers and police investigators to talk to each other over the telephone. “Many issues are just solved quicker through a call rather than through endless email exchanges,” Parkinson told reporters on Wednesday at the headquarters of the Crown Prosecution Service (CPS) in London. He added that “a cultural change” was needed among some younger lawyers — “and to assist that we’ve actually put a cap on the number of written communications that can take place without a conversation with the police”...

Registered sex offenders should inform police about their new partners and share details of any pregnancies, a review into the death of Constance Marten and Mark Gordon's daughter has found. Baby Victoria's body was found in a shopping bag in Brighton in 2023, after her parents concealed her birth and went on the run in an attempt to avoid contact with social services. Marten and Gordon, a convicted rapist, were both sentenced to 14 years for gross negligence manslaughter last year. The review, chaired by Sir David Holmes, sought to identify missed safeguarding opportunities, and to learn lessons from what the review called the "extreme case" of baby Victoria's death...

... Given the repeating pattern of concealed pregnancies and child removals in the family, the authorities should have anticipated another pregnancy was likely, the review found. Had authorities known earlier that her parents were expecting another child, more could have been done to save baby Victoria. There is no legal duty for a woman to disclose her pregnancy. The report suggested social services would have had an earlier opportunity to intervene had Gordon, a registered sex offender, been required to share details of his partner's pregnancy with the authorities. The review also suggested better support was needed for parents whose children are taken into care...

Following the MoJ’s response to the consultation paper ‘Criminal Legal Aid: Proposals for Solicitor Fee Scheme Reform’, the statutory instrument (SI) introducing the changes to the Litigators’ Graduated Fee Scheme (LGFS) has been laid today and will come into effect for cases with a representation order dated on or after 3 March 2026...

The SI introduces the following changes:

• a fixed ratio of 65:75:100 between guilty plea, cracked trial, and trial basic fees
• an uplift to the basic fees for offence types E, F, G, H and I of approximately one third
• an increase of 10% for appeals work, against sentence or conviction from a magistrates’ court