Issue 185  20th March 2021

From this week Wolverhampton Park Hall Hotel will provide space for more jury trials by providing 2 additional courtrooms to hear non-custodial criminal cases, freeing up space at Wolverhampton Crown Court. The Hilton Liverpool City Centre will provide an additional courtroom for non-custodial criminal cases to free up space at Liverpool Crown Court. They will be joined by Croydon Jury’s Inn which will provide 2 additional rooms, one for Crown Court and one for Crown Court appeals work. This means that 5 new rooms are available to hear cases across the country, allowing more hearings to take place safely and delivering speedier justice for victims.

It is almost a year since the courts started to hear more cases remotely as a consequence of the COVID-19 pandemic. This has enabled us to keep people safe whilst continuing to administer justice. At the start of the year as we went once more into lockdown in the face of rapidly increasing infection rates, I made it clear that facilitating remote attendance of all or some of those involved in hearings should be the default position in all jurisdictions... During this time, we have seen that technology has many advantages but, in some circumstances, it can also have the effect of slowing down work. Over the next few weeks and months as the number of people who have been vaccinated against COVID increases and restrictions begin to ease across England and Wales, it will be possible and desirable to increase attendance in person where it is safe and in the interests of justice. This will be important to maximise the throughput of work...

Following a meeting of the Criminal Justice Taskforce, chaired by the Prime Minister, the Government is taking immediate steps to provide further reassurance for women and girls. This includes doubling the size of the Safer Streets fund, which provides neighbourhood measures such as better lighting and CCTV. This will bring the funding for these local projects to £45million, alongside a commitment from the Government to work with police forces and Police and Crime Commissioners to ensure these target areas of potential concern for women and girls and are now more focussed on preventing sexual violence. This could include targeting parks and alleyways, and routes from bars, restaurants and nightclubs as we see a return to the night-time economy, in line with the lifting of coronavirus restrictions.

To further support this, and help women feel safer in the night-time economy as we build back from the pandemic, the Government will also roll-out pilots of ‘Project Vigilant’ across the country. This is an internationally award winning-approach taken by Thames Valley Police where both uniformed and plain clothes officers identify predatory and suspicious offenders in the night time economy. This can involve officers attending areas around clubs and bars undercover to better ensure women are safe in these locations, and increased patrols as people leave at closing time.

These steps have been taken in response to the outpouring of experiences and concerns following the death of Sarah Everard. They will complement existing action being taken to address violence against women and girls and keep them safe. This includes toughening sentences for serious violence and sexual assaults through the Police Crime and Sentencing Bill and measures in the Domestic Abuse Bill to improve protections for victims and create news offences, such as non-fatal strangulation.

There were 118 deaths related to Covid-19 among people in prisons in England and Wales between March 2020 and February 2021, representing a risk of dying more than three times higher than that of people of the same age and sex outside secure environments, the research team at University College London (UCL) found.

The higher rate of death comes despite extensive physical distancing measures, including prisons keeping many inmates in their cells for 23 hours a day. The Ministry of Justice challenged the authors’ work, however, arguing it failed to adjust for worse health among the prison population than the community and movements of prisoners in and out of prison...

On 26 and 27 January, the Court of Appeal heard a judicial review launched by the End Violence Against Women (EVAW) coalition against the CPS. Their case was that a change to CPS rape and serious sexual offences guidance amounted to an illegal change of approach to prosecuting rapes, which has contributed to falling levels of these cases. The CPS case was that there has been no change in how we prosecute rape. While revisions were made to our guidance, specifically regarding the removal of the term merits-based approach, this was not a change in policy... Today the Court of Appeal has delivered its judgment which dismissed all claims that the CPS acted unlawfully or irrationally. It also confirms the changes in language to our guidance for prosecutors in 2016 did not change its effect.

New court orders to boost efforts to crack down on knife crime will be piloted in 4 police forces, Home Secretary Priti Patel has announced. The 4 forces – Thames Valley, West Midlands, Merseyside and Sussex – will trial the introduction of Serious Violence Reduction Orders (SVROs), which give the police new stop and search powers to target convicted knife and offensive weapons offenders. The orders are designed to ensure convicted offenders are steered away from crime and, if they persist in carrying a knife or an offensive weapon, that they are more likely to be caught and put in prison.

Targeted use of stop and search, as part of a wider approach to intervene and support offenders, will help to safeguard those communities most at risk. The pilot will test how well the orders deter violent offenders from carrying weapons, before a decision is made on national roll out.

In March 2021, the Home Secretary and the Mayor of London commissioned HMICFRS to inspect how the Metropolitan Police Service (MPS) handled the policing of the vigil in memory of Sarah Everard held on Clapham Common on Saturday 13 March 2021... We will report our findings and update this page in due course.