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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
Update from the Lord Chancellor
New criminal jury trials, which had been suspended since late March, were restarted in four Crown Courts in the week beginning 18 May, following the implementation of particular measures to ensure the safety of all participants. As of this week, a total of 25 courts are holding trials again.
In addition, HMCTS is exploring options to stagger and extend the operating hours of courts and tribunals, including starting hearings at different times of day and weekend sittings, to manage the flow of people through our buildings and enable more cases to be heard safely.
HMCTS is also actively locating other buildings, including new venues and former court buildings, to use as court and tribunal locations on a temporary basis. Ten sites have been identified across England and Wales and these will be confirmed and announced locally in due course.
Update from the LCJ
The plan sets out how HMCTS intends to move forward. Importantly, the Lord Chancellor has agreed that sitting days should be used to their maximum in this period and we should not hesitate in using fee-paid and deputy judges to fill any gaps which cannot be filled by the salaried judiciary. It is now all hands to the pump.
This recovery plan sets out details for reopening venues. You may have seen that the majority of courts and tribunal buildings are set to reopen by the end of June, with the remainder opening as soon as it is safe for them to do so in line with public health guidance; the safety of all court users remains a priority. Local leadership judges will also be looking to list creatively and to stagger and extend sitting times, with the potential to start hearings at different times of day and to sit at weekends.
'16 more courts to resume jury trials'
The following 16 courts will resume jury trials from 6 July:
- Birmingham Crown Court
- Cambridge Crown Court
- Carlisle Combined Court
- Harrow Crown Court
- Isleworth Crown Court
- Manchester Crown Court (Crown Square)
- Northampton Combined Court
- Norwich Combined Court Centre
- Oxford Combined Court Centre
- Peterborough Combined Court Centre
- Portsmouth Combined Court Centre
- Preston Combined Court Centre
- Southwark Crown Court
- Swindon Combined Court
- Taunton Combined Court
- Wolverhampton Combined Court Centre
'Plans to cut size of juries to nine people to allow social distancing in courtrooms during criminal trials'
The Ministry of Justice is drawing up plans to reduce the number of people sitting on a jury from 12 to nine in order to help social distancing in courtrooms.
Criminal courts face enormous waiting lists after having to pause all but their most urgent cases for three months since the start of lockdown. The backlog has led to proposals that some cases in crown court should dispense with the jury altogether and feature a judge sitting with magistrates instead. Justice Secretary Robert Buckland has rejected that idea after a major backlash from the legal profession which warned that scrapping the denying the centuries-old right to a jury trial to those accused of serious crimes risked a major miscarriage of justice.
'Major investment in small businesses through justice system improvements'
An extra £285 million-worth of improvements to courts and prisons this year will see hundreds of businesses supported and thousands of jobs created, as part of the Prime Minister’s plan for economic recovery.
Over £140 million will be spent installing temporary prison cells, repairing and refurbishing prisons, approved premises and young offender institutions, and improving IT in jail. A further £142 million will be pumped into the courts system to speed up technological improvements and modernise courtrooms, building on the rapid progress made to keep the system running during the coronavirus pandemic.
Four New Prisons
Four new prisons are to be built across England over the next six years – boosting efforts to cut crime and kickstart the economy.
The first new jail will be built next to HMP Full Sutton, in East Yorkshire, and work is underway to identify locations for a further prison in the North-West of England and two in the South-East.
These prisons are another major step in the Government’s £2.5 billion programme to create 10,000 additional prison places. This will deliver modern jails that boost rehabilitation and cut reoffending - providing improved security and additional training facilities to help offenders find employment on release.
EncroChat Intercepted
A top-secret communications system used by criminals to trade drugs and guns has been "successfully penetrated", says the National Crime Agency. The NCA worked with forces across Europe on the UK's "biggest and most significant" law enforcement operation.
Major crime figures were among over 800 Europe-wide arrests after messages on EncroChat were intercepted and decoded. More than two tonnes of drugs, several dozen guns and £54m in suspect cash have been seized, says the NCA.
Cases
R v Hepburn [2020] EWCA Crim 820
The appellant and Joe Clarke were then both professional cricketers who played for Worcestershire County Cricket Club...
The prosecution also relied upon a series of WhatsApp messages to suggest that the appellant was indifferent to whether the complainant was consenting to sex. His motivation was said to be gaining points as part of a sexual conquest game which he, Mr Clarke and another club cricketer had agreed to play...
We are satisfied that the judge made no error in admitting the WhatsApp messages, starting with the one in which the appellant set out the rules of the game on 27 March 2017. Whilst we doubt that they were admissible under section 98(a) of the 2003 Act, they were plainly so under the combination of sections 101(1)(c) & 102 (as being important explanatory evidence), and also under section 101(1)(d) (as being relevant to an important matter in issue between the parties, namely belief in consent)...
Sentencing Remarks in R v Safiyya Amira Shaikh
On 31 August 2019 you identified St Paul’s Cathedral as the place that you would like to target – saying that you wanted a lot of people to die, that it was the best opportunity of your life, and that once you had the money you would visit the Cathedral in order to check out the security arrangements – making clear that you had always wanted to do big things and that your plan was to kill as many as possible and to destroy the Cathedral in the process...
In the result, on Count 1, I sentence you to life imprisonment with a minimum term of 14 years’ imprisonment... On Count 2, I sentence you to a concurrent special sentence comprised of 8 years’ imprisonment and one year on licence. You will be subject to the Counter-Terrorism Notification Requirements for 30 years. I make a forfeiture order in the terms sought in relation to the property identified in the prosecution schedule, and a Victim Surcharge Order must be drawn up.
Other
'Please don't forget us: Coronavirus adds to court cases backlog'
The coronavirus lockdown has added thousands more cases to the backlog faced by courts in England and Wales. It could take up to 10 years to clear this backlog, a new report says. So how does this affect people already tied up in the criminal justice system?