Issue 246  11th June 2022

About 2,500 members of the Criminal Bar Association will be balloted today on escalating a work-to-rule that has been in place for six weeks. Barristers are in dispute with the Ministry of Justice over legal aid rates, saying that in some cases junior lawyers are paid less than the minimum wage. In an attempt to head off action earlier this year, ministers said that they had boosted legal aid funding for criminal cases by £135 million, which amounted to about a 15 per cent rise. However, barristers argued that not all of that went to them as it was spread over all advocates in the criminal courts, which includes solicitors...

The Attorney General’s revised Guidelines on Disclosure will be effective from 25 July 2022...

These Guidelines replace the existing Attorney General’s Guidelines on Disclosure issued in 2020 and the Supplementary Guidelines on Digital Material issued in 2013, which is an annex to the general guidelines.

Victims of rape and other crimes should not delay receiving therapy for any reason connected with a police investigation or prosecution, the Crown Prosecution Service has said today. The updated pre-trial therapy guidance, published today, seeks to alleviate victim concerns that accessing counselling could damage the prosecution case.

Prosecutors and police are advised ‘the health and well-being of the victim should always determine decision making with regards to pre-trial therapy’ and it is for the survivor to decide when to seek help and in what form. The guidance follows the Attorney General’s guidelines on disclosure - which states material should only be sought when relevant - and necessary data protection laws, to ensure requests for personal information are lawful and within the necessary parameters.

New guidance designed to give rape victims confidence to get therapy before their trial “makes things worse” for survivors and lessened their protections, according to the victims’ commissioner, Vera Baird. The guidance issued by the Crown Prosecution Service (CPS) aims to “alleviate victim concerns that accessing counselling could damage the prosecution case,” but Baird echoed concerns from campaign groups that they, in fact, reduce protections and called for therapy notes to be excluded from criminal trials, as they are in Australia.

Additionally the attorney general, Suella Braverman, has released guidelines designed to stop intrusive demands for rape victims’ private information during criminal investigations, with the aim of increasing the proportion of rape and sexual assault convictions, which have fallen to historic lows since 2016. The new government guidelines are designed to prevent mass data collection from rape victims, which is being replaced with a new system that requires a written justification for each request for personal data such as mobile phones, social media conversations and medical and social services records.

Abusers who strangle their partners in an attempt to control or induce fear will face up to 5 years behind bars when a new offence comes into force today (7 June 2022)...

Non-fatal strangulation was made a specific offence as part of the government’s landmark Domestic Abuse Act. The practice typically involves a perpetrator strangling or intentionally affecting their victim’s ability to breathe in an attempt to control or intimidate them... The new offence will also apply to British nationals abroad. It means perpetrators can be prosecuted in England and Wales for offences committed overseas – ensuring there is no escape for abusers.

Draft sentencing guidelines for sentencing retailers including large organisations and individual shop owners convicted of selling knives to children in England and Wales were published for consultation today by the Sentencing Council.

There are two guidelines – one for sentencing organisations and one for sentencing individuals – which will apply to offenders who fail to ensure that adequate safeguards are in place to prevent the sale of knives to under 18s either in store or online. The proposed guideline for individuals provides for a range of non-custodial sentences, from discharge to high-level community order. The guideline for organisations provides for a range of fines from £500 to £1 million, with fines linked to turnover to make penalties proportionate to the size of organisation (organisations cannot be sentenced to custody or community orders)... The consultation will run from 1 June 2022 to 24 August 2022.

Serious offenders will face the toughest test yet to prove they have turned their backs on crime for good and are eligible for a move to open prison, following a tightening up of the rules by the Deputy Prime Minister.

From tomorrow (6 June 2022), all indeterminate sentence offenders – those who have committed the most serious crimes, including murderer and rape – will face much stricter criteria to move from closed to open prison. The stringent new rules will mean the Deputy Prime Minister can block any such prisoner moving to an open prison unless they can demonstrably pass a tough three-step test, including proving they are highly unlikely to abscond; that the move is essential for them to work towards future release; and the move would not undermine public confidence in the wider criminal justice system.

The Law Commission has published an options paper for the Government on how it can improve the law to ensure that corporations are effectively held to account for committing serious crimes... Our options paper, published on 10 June 2022, provides a series of options for law reform, and sets out certain principles that we think the law ought to reflect...

Options:

1. Retention of the identification doctrine as at present. 2A. Allowing conduct to be attributed to a corporation if a member of its senior management engaged in, consented to, or connived in the offence. 2B. As 2A, with the addition that the organisation’s chief executive officer and chief financial officer would always be considered to be members of its senior management.
2. An offence of failure to prevent fraud by an associated person.
3. An offence of failure to prevent human rights abuses.
4. An offence of failure to prevent ill‑treatment or neglect.
5. An offence of failure to prevent computer misuse.
6. Making publicity orders available in all cases where a non-natural person is convicted of an offence.
7. A regime of administratively imposed monetary penalties.
8. Civil actions in the High Court, based on Serious Crime Prevention Orders, with a power to impose monetary penalties. 10A. A reporting requirement based on section 414CB of the Companies Act 2006, requiring public interest entities to report on anti-fraud procedures. 10B. A reporting requirement based on section 54 of the Modern Slavery Act 2015, requiring large corporations to report on their anti-fraud procedures.