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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
'Raab promises scorecards by Christmas'
Criminal justice scorecards will be published by Christmas and give rape victims confidence in the justice system to come forward, the lord chancellor has told MPs. Grilled extensively on steps he is taking to support prosecution of perpetrators of violence against women and girls, Dominic Raab said he also wants to deter defence lawyers from the 'widespread practice' of encouraging the accused of waiting until they get to court before deciding to plead guilty.
Performance scorecards were first announced in June as part of the government's plan to return the volume of rape cases going through the courts to 2016 levels by the end of this parliament. Raab told the House of Commons that his department would publish scorecards not only for general crime but specifically for rape, to track performance at every step in the system. ‘That will help to spur an increase in performance, which will give victims the confidence to come forward and get prosecutions to court,' he said...
The government has been trialling section 28 pre-recorded cross-examinations for vulnerable victims and witnesses. Asked when section 28 procedures will be extended nationally, Raab said: ‘That is incredibly important not only for the victims of rape, but for other vulnerable victims. The evidence so far from the pilots and the trials needs to be gleaned and carefully evaluated, but I can tell my honourable friend that this is something that I want to look at very carefully not just because of the ability to secure a more effective prosecution, but to deter defence lawyers from perhaps not the universal practice, but certainly the widespread practice of encouraging the accused to wait until the moment in court before they take the decision on whether to plead guilty.’
'Defence solicitors fire back at Raab over guilty plea accusation'
Furious criminal defence solicitors have fired back at the lord chancellor over his suggestion that they encourage defendants to delay pleas until the last minute...
Criminal defence solicitor Jonathan Black, a partner at BSB Solicitors, said: 'What Raab does not appreciate, which demonstrates at best astonishing ignorance and at worse an attempt to play to the anti-lawyer gallery, is that a cracked trial, when a defendant pleads guilty at the last minute, usually results in a financial loss to the firm who has spent months preparing a case, chasing the Crown Prosecution Service and advising the client, only to find the fee slashed and any likely credit for the client pleading guilty diminished. It is lose-lose.'
Troman said the lord chancellor was right to look at ways to disincentivise defendants delaying a guilty plea, hoping a victim will not attend court to give evidence. 'The best way to achieve this is to ensure the Crown Prosecution Service show their hand early, to enable defence lawyers to give their clients clear advice. In domestic abuse cases initial disclosure should contain the 999 calls and body worn video evidence. Too often the defence are ambushed with this crucial evidence at the start of trial.' The Law Society said solicitors act in the best interests of their client, which includes advising an early guilty plea where appropriate.
'Sunak's millions will cut case backlog by just 7,000, government admits'
The government has admitted that nearly £500m awarded by chancellor Rishi Sunak last month to bring down the Crown court backlog will reduce it by only 7,000 over three years. Justice minister James Cartlidge told the House of Commons yesterday that the extra £477m allocated in the Treasury's spending review last month for the criminal justice system 'will allow us to reduce Crown court backlogs caused by the pandemic from 60,000 today to an estimated 53,000 by March 2025'.
According to a National Audit Office report, the Crown court backlog increased by 23% in the year leading up to the pandemic, increasing from 33,290 on 31 March 2019 to 41,045 on 31 March 2020. The backlog increased a further 48% since the onset of the pandemic, to 60,692 cases on 30 June 2021. However, prosecution data published by the Crown Prosecution Service last month stated that the number of outstanding Crown court cases rose to 70,011 on 30 June.
Justice secretary Dominic Raab told Sky News yesterday that he could not say precisely when the backlog will return to pre-pandemic levels, but he was confident that within six-to-12 months at the very latest the backlog will start to come down.
Loughborough Super Courtroom
Suspected criminal gangs will face justice at the country’s second ‘super courtroom,’ which opens in Loughborough today (9 November 2021). £2.7 million has been spent to revamp Loughborough Magistrates’ Court - creating a space that is much larger than a usual courtroom. It will host trials for offences that have a large number of defendants including county lines drug trafficking, murders, and money laundering – starting with a nine-defendant murder trial that begins tomorrow. So-called ‘multi-hander’ cases – which involve three or more defendants and accounted for almost a fifth of all trials waiting to be heard in mid-October – have built up during the pandemic as they have been harder to hear with social distancing measures in place. The ‘super courtroom’ will create the space needed to hear these trials and free up capacity elsewhere in the courts system, allowing up to an extra 250 cases a year to be heard across England and Wales.
Cases
Mansfield v DPP [2021] EWHC 2938 (Admin)
...By a case stated dated 10 March 2021 the Divisional Court is invited to determine two questions as follows: (i) Was the District Judge right to find that the magistrates' court did not have the jurisdiction to determine this type of abuse of process application?...
...In the light of Lord Brown's remarks in Panday, the class of abuse case falling to be decided exclusively in the High Court would seem to be very narrow indeed, perhaps comprising only executive misconduct in relation to extradition, as occurred in Bennett itself. I would decline to attempt any more precise definition of the exception. What appears clear from the above review of the authorities, however, is that magistrates will be competent to investigate and determine a wide range of circumstances falling into category 2 arising from, and bearing upon the fairness of, the domestic criminal process...
Other
'Court refuses bid to jail rough sex defence killer for longer'
Judges at the Court of Appeal refused a bit by the Attorney General, Suella Braverman QC, to review the sentence handed to Sam Pybus. He was jailed for four years and eight months after he admitted the manslaughter of Sophie Moss, who he choked to death during sex. His claim that she consented has been dubbed the "rough sex defence". But Lady Justice Macur, sitting with Lady Justice Carr and Mr Justice Murray at the Royal Courts of Justice in central London, said the jail term Pybus received was not "unduly lenient".
'Perhaps now it is time for more direct action at the criminal Bar'
...The CJS is more or less supported by the goodwill of those who work within it, to carry on despite successive cuts – to fees, to funding, even to the number of available courtrooms – and at the cost of their own wellbeing. Covid has compounded the effects of those cuts. For most, being a barrister is not simply a job, but a vocation, though that is fast becoming a euphemism for working one’s fingers to the bone for pay that can amount to less than minimum wage. But, when you cannot afford to pay your rent, or your bills, and you are exhausted to breaking point, you have no choice but to walk away, vocation or not...
...Funding and proper resourcing is the solution. Some feel that the autumn budget 2021, which includes an increase in the MoJ’s budget of £3.2bn (to £11.5bn) in 2024-5, and over £1 billion investment to help tackle the growing backlog, is a step in the right direction.[2] Others are less positive about the prospects for improving things for defendants and complainants who are forced to wait for justice, and for criminal advocates who are being forced out of the profession, particularly as there is no commitment to adequately remunerate legal aid lawyers.[3] If that is the governmental response to the efforts that have been made so far, perhaps now it is time for more direct action.
'Educate the public about sentencing'
The Court of Appeal judge is on a mission to improve understanding of how sentences are decided...