Issue 163  10th October 2020

The National Pre-Sentence Report Before Plea Protocol will apply to all magistrates' courts in England and Wales, commencing on a date to be decided regionally by each head of legal operations...

A pre-sentence report before plea applies where:

• it’s anticipated that an adult defendant, charged to appear before a guilty anticipated plea (GAP) or not guilty anticipated plea (NGAP) hearing on bail or postal requisition, will be sentenced in the magistrates’ court; for offences triable either way, see Sentencing Council allocation guidelines
• a defendant is willing to indicate a guilty plea to all offences charged on the full prosecution basis
• a defence legal representative, on behalf of their client, requests a pre-sentence report before plea...

NPS will decide whether to produce the report before the hearing. NPS will then notify the court and parties of the decision by email. Where NPS produce a report, they will upload it to Court Store for the hearing. At the hearing, the court receives the defendant's plea in the usual manner. Where the defendant pleads guilty, the court proceeds towards sentence and decides whether to access then consider the pre-sentence report.

An investigation has been launched by the British Transport Police after it failed to record a teenager’s knife mugging convictions, leaving a murder trial unaware of his previous criminality. The young man was cleared of murder by an Old Bailey jury after 27 hours of delibeartion last month, but convicted of carrying a knife.

However the court, including the defendant's lawyers, were not aware of the 17-year-old’s two previous convictions for muggings on trains in February 2019 due to the “human error” by the British Transport Police. A British Transport Police spokesperson said: “We can confirm we’ve launched a full internal investigation in response to two convictions not being uploaded to the Police National Computer (PNC) as they should have been.

The accuracy of convictions stored on the Police National Computer (PNC) has been questioned after the courts service apologised when two offences were wrongly recorded against a defendant. The error led to a woman who had not at that stage been tried gaining a criminal record for offences relating to a violent crime she denied, and took three months for her lawyers to correct. It was dismissed by HM Courts and Tribunal Service as a “slip”.

Three months after the convictions were entered on to the PNC, the courts service, HMCTS, sent the woman a letter apologising for the error. The Guardian is not identifying the individual affected. It stated: “Very occasionally, there can be a slip in the digital system. Our records suggest that this must unfortunately have applied on … in your case.” The letter said a detective inspector “has been notified to take corrective action of the Police National Computer Records”.

Around £10m of property has been surrendered in a major victory against some of northern England's most dangerous criminals. The apartments and homes were given up to the National Crime Agency by a Leeds businessman who investigators suspect of being a major money-launderer. The NCA says Mansoor Mahmood Hussain acted for gangsters, including a murderer and drug trafficker. The agency believes he laundered their profits through a property empire...

While the 40-year-old has never been convicted of a crime, investigators say they had intelligence linking him to serious gangsters - but could not obtain the detailed evidence needed for charges of money laundering. Instead, in 2019, they turned to the relatively new power of an Unexplained Wealth Order which required the businessman to open his books and show how his wealth had come from legitimate sources. The NCA has now announced that Mr Hussain has given up fighting the case against him and has agreed a settlement in which he has handed over there vast majority of his empire - 45 properties, apartments, offices and homes...

The Queen has appointed 118 Recorders on the advice of the Lord Chancellor, The Right Honourable Robert Buckland QC MP, and the Lord Chief Justice of England and Wales, The Right Honourable The Lord Burnett of Maldon. The appointments will take effect from 12 October 2020.

The Queen is pleased to approve the appointment of a Justice of the High Court. This appointment will take effect from 1 February 2021. It is anticipated that further announcements will be made. The candidate approved as a High Court Judge is Emma Louise Arbuthnot.

Emma Louise Arbuthnot, aged 61, will be known as The Honourable Mrs Justice Arbuthnot. She was Called to the Bar (I) in 1986. She was appointed as a Deputy District Judge (Magistrates’ Courts) 1999, as a Recorder in 2001, as a District Judge (Magistrate’s Courts) in 2005, as the Deputy Senior District Judge (Magistrates’ Court) in 2012 and as the Senior District Judge (Chief Magistrate) in 2016. She will take up appointment on 1 February 2021 consequential to retirements in the High Court.