Issue 222  4th December 2021

Child abusers in England and Wales could face life in jail under tougher sentencing plans unveiled by ministers. It follows a campaign for Tony's Law by the adoptive family of seven-year-old Tony Hudgell, who had both legs amputated following abuse. Justice Secretary Dominic Raab said the legislation would provide "maximum protection to the most vulnerable". Tony's adoptive mother Paula Hudgell, of King's Hill, Kent, said she was "delighted" at the announcement.

Under the plans, the maximum jail sentence for those who cause or allow a child's death will increase from 14 years to life imprisonment. Sentences are also set to go up from 10 to 14 years for people who cause serious harm to children.

Frozen lawyers say they can barely work in some courtrooms where heating systems have failed during the cold snap. Different reports have come in today of judges allowing advocates and court staff to take emergency measures as they battle the conditions to keep hearings on track. This comes just weeks after the lord chief justice, Lord Burnett of Maldon, said that ‘hundreds of millions’ needed to be spent on the court estate to deal with a catalogue of maintenance issues...

According to one report from Bournemouth Crown Court this morning, the heating was broken and court staff wore coats and scarves indoors. The Criminal Bar Association said it had been told you could ‘see your breath’ in one of the court buildings... Last week, three juries were sent home because of plummeting temperatures at Inner London Crown Court... The Gazette has been told that one judge at Bolton Crown Court refused to sit today as the temperature indoors was nine degrees. Problems have also been reported at Maidstone Crown Court and Sheffield Crown Court, where a hearing was delayed while portable heaters were brought in...

A new system to allow victims in rape trials to give pre-recorded evidence is becoming “unworkable” because lawyers are refusing to take on cases, MPs have been warned... The measure – under Section 28 of the Youth Justice and Criminal Evidence Act – is intended to help vulnerable witnesses avoid having to wait months or even years for a court showdown with the defendant.

However Kirsty Brimelow QC, vice chair of the Criminal Bar Association (CBA), warned MPs on Wednesday that barristers are reluctant to take on Section 28 cases because of the havoc wreaked on their ability to work effectively. “Barristers are finding themselves unable to even eke a living by leaving themselves completely free to do these section 28 hearings. So they are not doing them,” she said. “And if you don’t have practitioners doing them, they are not workable. That’s the bottom line, whatever the policy is.”

Judges should make greater use of their power to clear the public from courtrooms in rape trials, the country’s top prosecutor has argued. In an effort to encourage more alleged victims to come forward, Max Hill QC, the director of public prosecutions for England and Wales, said that more should be done to allow them to give evidence away from the glare of supporters of defendants. Hill, who heads the Crown Prosecution Service, said that existing legislation allowed complainants giving evidence in rape and serious sexual offence cases were entitled to request the public, including any supporters of the defendant, be excluded from courtrooms...

... Part of that process, said Hill, would be to encourage greater use of measures in the Youth Justice and Criminal Evidence Act 1999, which allowed judges to clear public galleries in courtrooms hearing rape case on the request of complainant’s and witnesses. Doing so “will go some small way to making the process easier for survivors and help them to give their best evidence so we can present the strongest possible case in court”, he argued...

Upskirting prosecutions more than doubled over the second year of the legislation being in force, with CPS analysis finding at least a third of offenders are also committing other serious sexual crimes. In total, 46 men and one teenage boy were prosecuted for 128 offences under the Voyeurism (Offences) Act between 1 April 2020 and 30 June 2021.

According to our analysis, 15 of the men prosecuted for upskirting since last April were simultaneously charged with other sexual crimes – including child abuse, sexual assault, extreme pornography, and wider voyeurism offences. Shops, particularly supermarkets, remain by far the most common location for upskirting to take place, accounting for 36 per cent of offences since last spring. Streets, parks, and public transport or connected areas made up the majority of the remaining locations where crimes occurred.

Hundreds of court staff have said they will support strike action over the rollout of the new courts case management system, their trade union has said. The Public and Commercial Services Union (PCS) opened a consultative ballot last month over the Common Platform, which it says is ‘fundamentally flawed’ and has sent work-related stress and anxiety levels among its members in HM Courts & Tribunals Service ‘through the roof’...

Support for possible strike action among members who voted was 96.3% on a turnout of 57.2%. PCS said the results ‘should send a very clear message to HMCTS that they must now act and completely suspend the Common Platform’. The union said it will seek an urgent meeting with HMCTS on its demands, which include that no new cases are put on the Common Platform, that case results are recorded outside of the courtroom and that HMCTS carries out a ‘stress survey’ of Common Platform users.