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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
Magistrates’ Courts Sentencing Powers Increased
Under plans announced by Justice Secretary Dominic Raab, the maximum 6-month prison sentence that can currently be handed out by Magistrates is to be doubled to a year – freeing up an estimated 2,000 extra days of Crown Court time annually. Today’s move will increasingly allow the serious cases heard by magistrates – such as fraud, theft and assault – to be sentenced by them too. At present, any crimes warranting a jail term of more than 6 months must be sent to Crown Court where judges determine the appropriate sentence.
'Criminal prosecution delays hit record 708 days'
Delays in prosecuting suspected criminals have hit a record 708 days for the average time it takes to go from offence to completion of a case. In the three months to September 2021, the average time it took to deal with a crime rose 15%, up from 620 days. The figures are a blow to the Ministry of Justice which is battling to reduce the massive backlog of serious crimes waiting to be dealt with by judges.
The Criminal Bar Association's Jo Sidhu QC called the figures "devastating". The Ministry of Justice says its latest measures will restore swift justice. The government figures show that while more cases are being listed for trial at Crown Court, they are not being dealt with fast enough to prevent the average wait for justice from increasing...
'CPS denies suggestion it shrinks font to reduce page count'
The Crown Prosecution Service has challenged comments made by the chair of the government-commissioned legal aid review this week that the prosecuting body deliberately keeps pages of prosecution evidence down by shrinking the font – which would affect how much legal aid practitioners are paid. Pages of prosecution evidence are one of multiple factors under the litigators graduated fee scheme (LGFS) that determine solicitors’ fees...
Bellamy said: ‘Solicitors should therefore be paid for the preparation work they do properly and we should get away from this somewhat medieval practice of counting the pages insofar as they are pages. Senior officials at the CPS were telling me the other day they actually deliberately shrink the font of the pages served in order to reduce the page count. It’s very difficult to imagine a criminal justice system reduced to that sort of manoeuvre.’ Criminal practitioners were furious. ‘What we have long suspected, and this is the tip of the iceberg,’ former London Criminal Courts Solicitors Association president Mark Troman said on Twitter. A CPS spokesperson said: ‘We are not responsible for the formatting of these pages.’
'Ben John’s sentence increased following personal intervention by the Solicitor General'
On 7 January 2020, Lincolnshire Police searched John’s home and seized several electronic devices including a phone and hard drives. Police found tens of thousands of politically extreme and far-right documents and files. This included white nationalist and anti-Semitic materials...
On 31 August 2021, John was sentenced to 2 years’ imprisonment, suspended for 2 years, at Leicester Crown Court. Following the sentence, the Solicitor General referred John’s sentence to the Court of Appeal under the Unduly Lenient Sentence (ULS) scheme.
On 19 January, the Court of Appeal found his original sentence to be unduly lenient and increased it to 2 years’ imprisonment with a 1 year licence period.
Cases
R v AB & Ors [2021] EWCA Crim 2003
The grounds of appeal and submissions are simple. It is said that the convictions are unsafe because the judge's indication was so generous that the offer was irresistible to any defendant, whether guilty or not, or at least it operated to apply inappropriate pressure so that the pleas should not be regarded as truly voluntary. This is in part because of the failure to follow the procedure in R v. Goodyear [2005] EWCA Crim 888, 2005 1 WLR 2532, but only in part...
It is, we think, relevant to the safety of the convictions that the appellants were not aware, when they entered their pleas, that they were liable to an increase in sentence if the cases were referred to this court by the law officers. It is also relevant that the impetus for the indication appears to have come from the judge, and we are aware of no request for an indication ever having been made personally by any defendant. All parties had attended on 10 September at the instigation of the judge, or at least with his endorsement, so that the possibility of guilty pleas could be discussed. No doubt any appellant who was resolute could have refused to take part in discussions, but their attendance at this pre‑trial review was not dispensed with and they had no choice but to be present. Moreover, it is worth pointing out that this was a family and the mother was unwell and was the defendant who was in the most serious trouble...
The failures to follow the Goodyear procedure in the respects we have identified were significant. The failure to deal with the matter in open court with the defendants present meant that the court could not speak directly to them to ensure that they understood exactly what the position was, in particular, in relation to a possible reference. The real problem, though, was that the indication that there would be no immediate custodial sentence in the event of guilty pleas on that day was so far below the proper level of sentencing that however it was given it would impose real pressure on the defendant, especially in the family situation we have described above. We do not say that this will be the case whenever a judge indicates that there will be no immediate custodial sentence and thereby indicates an unduly lenient sentence. It is a matter of degree...
In these circumstances we consider that the approach of the judge and of counsel in the case was such as to place inappropriate pressure on the appellants and to deprive them of their free choice as to whether to plead guilty or not. These convictions are unsafe and we will direct that they are quashed at the time when we have determined any application for a retrial...
The court will prepare an anonymised version of these judgments in summary which can be published now because the point involved is, we think, a matter of significance in the present circumstances in which judges all over the country are doing their level best to deal with a long backlog of cases and where perhaps things may be happening which would not normally be contemplated.
Other
'New sentencing powers may overwhelm prisons'
Magistrates in England and Wales will be allowed to pass prison sentences of up to 12 months under plans announced in the Daily Telegraph today by the justice secretary, Dominic Raab. At present, the maximum they sentence they can impose in a single case is six months...
... The government’s frank admission that it may be necessary to “quickly stop the measures” shows what a bad idea this is. There is of course a good reason why this provision has lain dormant for the best part of 20 years, only to be repealed in 2020. Successive governments have accepted that allowing magistrates to pass longer sentences would increase the prison population. The risk of overcrowding would be particularly high in the short term because, as Raab accepts, it would lead to swifter sentencing...
'Unwarranted hostility: Magistrates' chief fires back at critics'
The chair of the Magistrates’ Association has criticised what she described as 'unwarranted hostility' towards magistrates following the news that their sentencing powers will be increased to help cut the Crown court backlog...
Bev Hills, chair of the Magistrates Association, told the Gazette she was disappointed to see the reaction of some in the defence community ‘to this highly practical and sensible move’. She said: ‘The opinions voiced were based on conjecture and assumptions, rather than hard evidence – and the hostility towards magistrates is unwarranted...