Issue 201  10th July 2021

The government has confirmed that it still intends to hold the Royal commission announced in the Queen’s Speech of December 2019 to review and improve efficiency in the criminal justice system. Justice minister Lord Wolfson of Tredegar told the Lords yesterday that the government had ‘paused work’ on the commission due to Covid...

The Ministry of Justice advertised for a deputy director-secretary to the commission last year. The successful candidate would lead on setting up the commission, and act as a link between the commission and the wider criminal justice system. The salary for the full-time post was £72,500. Yesterday’s debate in the Lords revealed that crossbench peer Lord Ramsbotham was told last November that staff had been appointed.

A new drugs unit will be set up to help end illegal drug-related illness and deaths, the government has announced today. The Joint Combating Drugs Unit will bring together multiple government departments – including the Department of Health and Social Care, Home Office, Ministry of Housing, Communities and Local Government, Department for Work and Pensions, Department for Education and Ministry of Justice – to help tackle drugs misuse across society. This joint approach recognises that treatment alone is not enough and wider support, including with housing and employment, is essential to aid recovery. There are now an estimated 300,000 opiate or crack users in England, and around one million people using cocaine per year. Drug misuse poisoning deaths are at a record high, having increased by nearly 80% since 2012.

The government has been accused of “paying lip service” to Covid-19 safety in courts as concerns emerge about efforts to tackle transmission within the justice system. Courts in England and Wales have remained open throughout the pandemic, relying heavily on a policy of weekly inspections of its buildings by senior staff and a traffic light system to raise urgent safety issues. However an investigation by the Evening Standard has now uncovered significant concerns about the monitoring of those safety regimes in London’s courthouses last year. HM Courts and Tribunal Service (HMCTS) insists its courts have been kept “Covid-secure” and safety measures have been closely checked throughout the last 15 months. But a third of the weekly assessments that were supposed to have been carried out between May and December last year at London’s criminal courts are missing from government records.

Priti Patel’s laws to crack down on asylum seekers crossing the Channel were dealt a blow yesterday when the Crown Prosecution Service said that it would no longer prosecute migrants... The CPS said that asylum seekers not involved in any criminal activity other than illegal entry should not be prosecuted because they could “usually be better dealt with by removal”...

The CPS guidance also sets out the circumstances when criminal charges may be considered for those bringing migrants to the UK while posing a risk to their lives. The agency said the guidance confirmed that those involved in people smuggling and Channel crossings “can expect to face prosecution where this is supported by the evidence”. It added that prosecutors should consider the “public interest factors” in charging migrants entering illegally. The CPS explained: “Asylum seekers often have no choice in how they travel and face exploitation by organised crime groups. The guidance therefore advises that passengers of boats and other vehicles should not be prosecuted unless they are repeat offenders or have previously been deported — and should instead be dealt with by administrative removal channels.”

Three innocent black men who were jailed nearly 50 years ago over a corrupt police officer’s claims they tried to rob him have had their convictions overturned by the court of appeal. Courtney Harriot, Paul Green and Cleveland Davidson, all aged between 17 and 20 at the time, were arrested on the tube in London while travelling from Stockwell station in February 1972.

The trio, now in their late 60s, and three friends – who became known as the Stockwell Six – were put on trial at the Old Bailey, largely on the word of British Transport Police (BTP) officer DS Derek Ridgewell, whom the force now recognises as discredited. The Stockwell Six were accused of trying to rob Ridgewell and all bar one of them was convicted and sent either to jail or to borstal, despite telling jurors that police officers had lied and subjected them to violence and threats. At a hearing at the Royal Courts of Justice in London on Tuesday, the court of appeal cleared Harriot, Green and Davidson’s names, nearly five decades after they were convicted.

Court orders preventing young people from carrying knives and becoming embroiled in serious violence are now being piloted in London, Home Secretary Priti Patel has announced. The new Knife Crime Prevention Orders are being trialled by the Metropolitan Police Service for 14 months, before plans to roll them out across forces in England and Wales.

They can be imposed on individuals as young as 12 whom police have reason to believe are carrying knives or are habitual knife carriers, or those who have been previously convicted of a knife-related offence. Police can apply to the courts for the orders. The conditions attached can include curfews and restrictions on an individual’s use of social media, travel outside geographical boundaries, as well as explicitly banning them from carrying a knife.