Issue 197  12th June 2021

Caravan courts should be used to restore local justice and save victims, witnesses and defendants from travelling miles from their homes, the country’s former top judge has said. Baroness Hale of Richmond, who was the first woman president of the Supreme Court, called for mobile courts to fill gaps created by the government’s sale of hundreds of court buildings. The Times revealed last year that the number of courts dealing with criminal and civil cases in England and Wales. fell from 923 in 2010 to 628 by the end of 2019. Half of the 323 magistrates’ courts had closed.

Lawyers fear extended court operating hours will be 'introduced through the back door' as they prepare to fight a fresh attempt to bring in the controversial scheme. The Criminal Bar Association said in February that the scheme, which it described as 'discriminatory', had been abandoned. The government subsequently said the Covid Operating Hours proposal was still under review.

Last week, in a speech delivered at the Law Society, lord chancellor Robert Buckland said Crown courts would be authorised ‘to work at full throttle’ to clear the court backlog. This week, Women in Criminal Law, a practitioner group, revealed that Northampton Crown Court is proposing to introduce what appears to be the Covid Operating Hours model.

The group received an email, which said: ‘The Crown Court at Northampton is looking to increase its trial capacity so that older bail cases that are currently waiting to get on can be listed for trial. The hours are 9 to 1 and then 2 to 6.’ A meeting to discuss the proposal with Northampton's resident judge will take place next week.

... The findings from the further evaluation (published in July 2017), appeared to show that, overall, the burglary guideline had, to some extent, contributed to the unanticipated increases seen in sentencing severity for non-domestic and aggravated burglary offences (although due to low volumes for aggravated burglary this conclusion is less explicit). As a result of these findings, the Council decided to review the current Burglary Definitive Guideline. Due to pressure of other work it was not possible to commence this work until recently. Overall volumes of burglaries sentenced in the courts have been dropping in recent years. In 2019 around 10,080 adult offenders were sentenced for offences covered by the existing guideline. The Council is consulting on three revised guidelines covering the same offences as the existing guidelines. This consultation paper has been produced in order to seek views from as many people as possible interested in the sentencing of burglary offences...

The Government’s rape review will tell police and prosecutors to shift the focus of investigations onto the actions and past behaviour of suspects, rather than victims, after a pioneering Home Office-backed trial by police. The review, to be published next week, will recommend an offender-centric approach that focuses more on suspects’ patterns of behaviour before, during and after reported attacks. It will shift the spotlight from investigating the credibility of victims, which has been blamed for an increase in the numbers withdrawing from cases and falling conviction rates...

Police are investigating thousands of suspect drug testing reports from one laboratory that may have been used in criminal, coronial, family and employment cases, it has emerged.

A judgment in Greater Manchester Police v Zuniga & Ors details how Greater Manchester Police has uncovered 27,000 reports which appear to have been affected by alleged data manipulation. Seven suspects are alleged to have provided services between police forces to identify drug use through forensic analysis of hair, blood and urine. The results provided, some of which were falsified, were used in an unidentified number of court cases. The court heard that the alleged activity occurred at the same Manchester testing centre, the Hexagon Tower. Two companies were primarily involved: Trimega Laboratories which operated at the site from 2009, and Ingemino Group, which bought TL in 2012 but ceased trading two years later.

Fears are mounting that a bureaucratic efficiency drive coupled with rising numbers of defendants who are unrepresented by lawyers is leading to miscarriages of justice in magistrates’ courts. “Our magistrates’ courts are in a state of disarray and the risk of miscarriages of justice has never been higher,” says Naima Sakande, the women’s justice advocate at Appeal, a charity law firm.

The path is clear for the UK to seek a virtual trial in the case of Harry Dunn, the foreign secretary has said. The 19-year-old died near RAF Croughton in Northamptonshire in August 2019 when a car driven by suspect Anne Sacoolas hit his motorbike. She later left the country, claiming diplomatic immunity...

The Crown Prosecution Service (CPS) authorised Northamptonshire Police to charge her with causing the teenager's death by dangerous driving, but an extradition request was rejected by the US government. The maximum sentence for the charge is 14 years. Mr Raab told BBC Radio 4's Today programme "the US has not agreed to the extradition, but the path is clear for the legal authorities in the UK to approach Anne Sacoolas's lawyers - without any problem from the US government - to see whether some kind of virtual trial or process could allow some accountability and some solace and some justice for the Dunn family."