Issue 177

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

'Covid and the courts: Grave concerns for justice, warn watchdogs'

Four criminal justice watchdogs for England and Wales have warned they have "grave concerns" about the impact of court backlogs caused by the pandemic. The inspectorates for policing, prisons, probation and prosecutions say issues it has caused could damage the criminal justice system for years. It comes after figures revealed the backlog in the crown courts has reached 54,000 unheard cases. That means some crimes from last year will not go before a jury before 2022. The inspectorates say the unprecedented situation in the courts is having a ripple effect across all of criminal justice.

The report can be read here.

Blackfriars Crown Court Film Set

A recently sold purpose-built London courthouse is being hired out as a set to film legal scenes for a Netflix series at a time when the justice system faces a crisis of backlogged jury trials waiting to be heard.

Closed in December 2019, the former Blackfriars Crown Court site is awaiting redevelopment and has been hired out for filming and photography for the last nine months by its new owner. Despite trials being listed as far away as 2022 due to lack of space, television production company Top Boy used the purpose built, 28-year-old building to film courtroom scenes last week.

'£148 million to cut drugs crime'

Today (20 January 2021) the Home Secretary Priti Patel and Health Secretary Matt Hancock announce a £148 million new investment to cut crime and protect people from the scourge of illegal drugs.

Building on recent successes in tackling county lines gangs, the government will double the funding available for law enforcement to take down and bring to justice county lines gangs and drug kingpins. The £40 million of new money to tackle county lines and drugs supply brings the total invested to £65 million since November 2019... A further £28 million will be invested into piloting Project ADDER – a new intensive approach to tackling drug misuse, which combines targeted and tougher policing with enhanced treatment and recovery services. Project ADDER (which stands for Addiction, Diversion, Disruption, Enforcement and Recovery) will bring together partners including the police, local councils and health services, and run for 3 financial years in 5 areas with some of the highest rates of drug misuse: Blackpool, Hastings, Middlesbrough, Norwich and Swansea Bay... An extra £80 million will also be invested in drug treatment services right across England to give more support to offenders with drink and drug addictions, which can fuel crime. This new money will increase the number of treatment places for prison leavers and offenders diverted into tough and effective community sentences.

'Government U-turn exempts children from extended custody time limits'

In the wake of the Covid-19 pandemic, the Ministry of Justice implemented new regulations which extended custody time limits by two months, to address delays in the criminal justice system...

Yesterday (January 14) ministers agreed to a U-turn on the decision retrospectively, meaning that children who have been remanded in custody since 28 September 2020 will have custody time limits automatically reduced and their trials relisted with shorter custody time limits.

The letter from the Lord Chancellor can be read here and states the change will be made "as soon as Parliamentary time allows".

'Up to 500 new cells to be built in women's prisons'

Up to 500 new prison cells are to be built in women's jails, the Ministry of Justice has announced. These will be built in existing women's prisons to increase the number of single cells available and improve conditions...

The Ministry of Justice (MoJ) has also pledged almost £2m in funding to 38 charities so their "vital work in steering women away from crime can continue". This may include addressing mental health problems and drug use, both of which affect around half of women in prison.

Cases

R v Daniels [2021] EWCA Crim 44

Criminal trials involve the calling and testing of evidence, as part of a dynamic process. Save in wholly exceptional circumstances, juries are not discharged because a particular contention pursued by either the prosecution or the defence has been undermined during the evidence...

We have, nonetheless, grave doubts that the withdrawal of counsel and solicitors was justified by what was said by the applicant following receipt of the report of Mr Boyce on 24 May 2017. Under the relevant version of the Bar Standards Board Handbook in force at the time (31 March 2017) counsel was entitled to cease to act and return instructions, inter alia, if there was some substantial reason for doing so (rC26.8). Such a reason of substance would potentially exist if there had been, for instance, a truly material change of instructions which involved the defendant resiling from his or her earlier acceptance of one or more significant elements of the prosecution case; to adopt the expression in Mr Power's email to the Bar Council, if he had moved "away from the crux of the case rather than towards it" (see [57] above). R v Ulcay provides a useful example of such an event. In that case, the appellant had accepted that his voice was to be heard on certain significant intercept tapes, and the defence case had been prepared and presented on that basis. During the trial, he changed his instructions and said that it was not his voice, and he suggested that the contents of the defence statement did not reflect his case...

By contrast, in the present case the applicant had not "completely changed his instructions" in a manner which involved him resiling from an earlier acceptance of one or more significant elements of the allegations made against him. To the contrary, the account Mr Power recalls the applicant provided on 24 May 2017 took him substantially closer to an acceptance of the prosecution's case, namely that the fatal shot was fired when the pistol was in his hand, after he had pistol whipped MB. The bullet, on this account, entered MB's skull directly and not via a ricochet. In our judgment, the acceptance by an accused of a significant part of the case against him or her will not, save exceptionally, constitute a change of instructions that causes defence counsel professional embarrassment...

Sentencing Remarks in R v Nica, Hughes and Others

The Defendants have variously pleaded guilty, or been found guilty, of participation in a conspiracy to facilitate unlawful immigration in the overall period between 1 May 2018 and 24 October 2019 (Counts 40 & 40A)... In addition, Hughes and Robinson have pleaded guilty to, and Nica and Harrison have been found guilty of, 39 offences of dangerous unlawful act manslaughter on 22 October 2019 - when 39 Vietnamese migrants, aged between 15 to 44, died excruciating deaths from asphyxia, carbon dioxide poisoning and hyperthermia whilst, in furtherance of the conspiracy, they were being transported by freighter across the channel inside an airtight trailer from which they had no means of escape...

Other

'Guidance note: Managing production of prisoners during COVID-19'

Prison Escort Custody Services (PECS) do not routinely transfer prisoners from prison to court who are either symptomatic or confirmed positive with COVID-19; or are required to isolate as an identified contact of a person with COVID-19... This guidance note (attached below) is complementary to HMPPS guidance but with a specific focus on HMCTS process and the impact on court proceedings.

Issue 177 23rd January 2021