About
A free weekly collection of criminal law links - for practitioners, law students, and anyone with an interest in the criminal justice system of England and Wales.
Curated by Sam Willis, a barrister at 5 King's Bench Walk.
News
Consultation on Pre-Charge Bail
Home Secretary Priti Patel has today announced the launch of a consultation on pre-charge bail to protect victims and ensure the police are supported to investigate crimes.
Proposals for consultation include:
- removing the presumption against pre-charge bail
- placing a duty on officers to use pre-charge bail in cases where it is necessary and proportionate
- allowing officers of a lower rank to authorise and extend pre-charge bail
- extending the initial period where pre-charge bail can be applied from 28 to either 60 or 90 days, as well as delaying the point at which magistrates’ approval for the extension of bail is required from 3 months to 6, 9 or 12 months
- introducing ‘review points’ in codes of practice for investigations where pre-charge bail is not used
The consultation can be found here. It closes at closes at 11:45pm on 29 April 2020.
Emergency Law to End Early Release for Terror Offences
Emergency legislation will be introduced to end the automatic early release from prison of terror offenders, the government has said. Justice Secretary Robert Buckland told MPs the change would apply to both current and future offenders. Terror offenders will only be considered for release once they have served two-thirds of their sentence and with the approval of the Parole Board.
The Ministry of Justice said the legislation would be introduced "when parliamentary time allows". The government will also consider making new legislation to ensure that extremists are more closely monitored on release and will review whether the current maximum sentences for terrorist offences are sufficient.
‘Judges to sit for thousands of extra days in bid to reduce court delays’
Judges are to sit for thousands of extra days in a bid by the Ministry of Justice (MoJ) to reduce court delays that have seen victims waiting up to three years for justice.
Robert Buckland, the Lord Chancellor and Justice Secretary, is to commit judges to an extra 4,500 sitting days for 2020/21 to counter delays in bringing criminals to trial that The Daily Telegraph revealed last month had increased by more than a third in a decade.
'Crimes not reported as public lose confidence in police'
The police watchdog has warned that public confidence is being damaged with officers “rumbled” for struggling to investigate crimes – such as burglary – and by stop and search, which is 10 times more likely to target black people than white. Her Majesty’s Inspectorate of Constabulary and Fire & Rescue Services (HMICFRS) said the public is increasingly not bothering to report certain crime types, generally less serious offences such as car crime.
'Rape victims to benefit from government funding boost'
Victims of rape and sexual assault across England and Wales will be helped by a 50 per cent funding boost for specialist support services, the government has announced.
Cases
Hajiyeva v National Crime Agency [2020] EWCA Civ 108
This is an appeal from the decision of Supperstone J, dated 3 October 2018, dismissing an application made by Mrs Hajiyeva (the 'appellant') to discharge an Unexplained Wealth Order ('UWO') that he had previously made at a 'without notice' hearing on 27 February 2018.
The words, 'an individual who is, or has been, entrusted with prominent public functions' match those of article 3(9) of the Directive. The issue is whether the following words, 'by an international organisation or by a State other than the United Kingdom or [another] EEA State', have the effect of adding a further qualification: that the individual has to be specifically entrusted either by an international organisation or by a State. In our view, the focus of the statutory wording is on the status of the entrusted person and not how that person has come to be entrusted with prominent public functions. The intent is to exclude from the definition of a politically exposed person those who are entrusted with prominent public functions in either the UK or another EEA State.
Other
'AI could revolutionise DNA evidence – but right now we can't trust the machines'
And now, more sophisticated artificial intelligence (AI) techniques are being developed in an attempt to extract DNA profiles and try to work out whether a DNA sample came directly from someone who was at the crime scene, or whether it had just been innocently transferred.
But AI-based software has an even greater transparency problem than probabilistic genotyping software did, and one that’s currently fundamental to the way it works. The exact way the software works isn’t just a commercial secret – it’s unclear even to the software developers.
Obscurity
'Welsh police DNA test cow to prove farmer stole it from neighbour’s field'
Welsh police have used DNA profiling to convict a farmer of stealing a cow from a neighbour’s herd. Dyfed-Powys Police said it was the first force in the UK to use the tactic — typically deployed in more serious crimes such as murder — to solve a case involving the theft of a heifer.
The £3,000 cow at the centre of the dispute had escaped from a farm in St Clears, Carmarthenshire into a neighbouring field owned by David Owens, 51. Owens re-tagged the heifer and claimed it as his own, telling its true owner in August 2017 he had not seen it. But four months later the animal’s owner reported one of his 300 cows stolen after he identified it among Owens’s herd.