Issue 125  18th January 2020

Crown Court TV

Television cameras will be allowed to broadcast from Crown Courts in England and Wales for the first time, following draft legislation due to be laid by the government today (16 January 2020).

The Crown Court (Recording and Broadcasting) Order 2020 will allow cameras to broadcast the sentencing remarks of High Court and Senior Circuit judges in some of the most high-profile courts across the country, including the Old Bailey.

Proceedings are currently broadcast from certain Court of Appeal cases. Extending this to the Crown Court means the public will be able to hear judges explain the reasons behind their sentences for the most serious offences. Filming will be restricted to sentencing remarks only and no other court user – including victims, witnesses, jurors and court staff – will be filmed.

QC Appointments Announced

Her Majesty The Queen has approved the appointment of 114 barristers and solicitors as new Queen’s Counsel (QC) in England and Wales. The title of QC is awarded to those who have demonstrated particular skill and expertise in the conduct of advocacy.

PM to Lead Crime-Tackling Cabinet Committee

The Times reports that the Prime Minister will personally head up a new Cabinet committee aimed at combating knife crime and serious violence in a bid to restore the Conservatives' reputation as the party of law and order.

The committee on criminal justice - modelled on a similar set-up used for key Brexit decisions - will be led by the Prime Minister and also include Home Secretary Priti Patel, Justice Secretary Robert Buckland, Attorney General Geoffrey Cox and Chancellor Sajid Javid... Mr Buckland is said to have told the Cabinet on Tuesday that "every department should be a criminal justice department", while Ms Patel vowed to "cut the head off the snake" and toughen Britain's borders in bid to to halt a flow of drugs into the country.

Consultation on Revised Drug Sentencing Guidelines

Plans to revise sentencing guidelines for drugs offences in England and Wales were published for consultation today by the Sentencing Council, following significant change in the nature of offending, the increased seriousness of the offences, emerging drugs and new offences in psychoactive substances.

The Council is proposing to revise five of the current drug offences guidelines, which came into force in 2012 and cover offences under the Misuse of Drugs Act (MDA) 1971 to bring them up to date with modern drug offending, and to introduce four guidelines for new offences created by the Psychoactive Substances Act (PSA) 2016.

The consultation document can be found here.

CPS Hiring

The Crown Prosecution Service today embarks on a major hiring spree to cope with the extra work that will land on its desk after the government vowed to get tough on crime. The prime minister has pledged to recruit 20,000 extra police officers. This will result in more work for the CPS, which received an extra £85m to 'build capacity and manage caseloads'.

Today, the CPS said it aims to hire 390 prosecutors by June, as well as 100 paralegals and administrators in the future.

'Chief Inspector urges action on National Probation Service staffing, workloads and facilities'

The organisation that supervises high-risk offenders in the community is hampered by staff shortages, stretched middle managers and poor facilities, according to inspectors.

HM Inspectorate of Probation inspected all seven divisions of the National Probation Service (NPS) between July 2018 and June 2019, and found recurring problems with staffing and facilities. The Chief Inspector of Probation decided to conduct an extra inspection into HM Prison and Probation Service’s provision of central functions to NPS divisions.

The full report can be found here.

'Government considers new law to ban the possession of terrorist propaganda'

A new law that would make it illegal to possess extremist material, such as videos of Isil beheadings, is being considered by the Government in the wake of 2017 London Bridge attacks, the Home Secretary has confirmed.

Mark Lucraft QC, recommended the introduction of a new law that would ban material of the "most offensive and shocking character", putting it on a par with indecent images of children. In her official response to the coroner's report, published on Tuesday, Priti Patel said: "The Government accepts this recommendation and is currently considering the necessity for a further offence of possessing the most serious extremist material which glorifies or encourages terrorism.

'UK concealed failure to alert EU over 75,000 criminal convictions'

The UK has failed to pass on the details of 75,000 convictions of foreign criminals to their home EU countries and concealed the scandal for fear of damaging Britain’s reputation in Europe’s capitals, the Guardian can reveal.

The police national computer error, revealed in the minutes of a meeting at the criminal records office, went undetected for five years, during which one in three alerts on offenders – potentially including murderers and rapists – were not sent to EU member states.