Issue 269  26th November 2022

Earlier this month I informed His Majesty The King of my intention to retire from the office of Lord Chief Justice of England and Wales and Head of the Judiciary on 30 September 2023. I was appointed by Her Majesty Queen Elizabeth II on 1 October 2017.  I will by then have completed six years in office, more than any of my predecessors since Lord Lane in the 1980s.

When I was appointed, I thought that serving for around six years was probably realistic given the additional responsibility that the Constitutional Reform Act 2005 placed on the Lord Chief Justice of the day. I made my final decision on the timing many months ago.

Victims will be better protected from abusers who share intimate images without their consent, under a raft of changes to the law announced today (25 November 2022)...

The government will take forward several of the Law Commission’s recommendations to ensure legislation keeps pace with technology and can effectively tackle emerging forms of abuse. This includes:

• Repealing and replacing current legislation with new offences to simplify the law and make it easier to prosecute cases. This includes a new base offence of sharing an intimate image without consent and 2 more serious offences based on intent to cause humiliation, alarm, or distress and for obtaining sexual gratification.
• Creation of 2 specific offences for threatening to share and installing equipment to enable images to be taken.
• Criminalising the non-consensual sharing of manufactured intimate images (more commonly known as deepfakes).

Millions of pounds are being allocated to tackle violence against women and girls (VAWG), the Home Secretary has announced today (25 November)...

Measures announced include:

• £8.4 million to support victims of violence against women and girls
• targeted funding for the most vulnerable communities
• up to £7.5 million for domestic abuse interventions in healthcare settings
• funding for rapid spiking tests to build police intelligence

£8.4 million is being awarded to funding specialist support services for the most vulnerable. The majority of the money will go to services which are led, designed and delivered by the users and communities they serve, such as services for victims and survivors from ethnic minority backgrounds, deaf and disabled victims and survivors, and LGBT victims and survivors. Victims will benefit from trauma-informed support which could range from counselling to refuge accommodation. In addition, in recognition of the important role healthcare workers play in identifying domestic abuse and signposting victims to support, the government is also investing up to £7.5 million of funding for domestic abuse interventions in healthcare settings. This funding will aim to equip more healthcare professionals with the right tools to be able to better identify and respond to domestic abuse, and improve referral pathways for victims to access support services.

Terrorists who continue offending in prison will always face the prospect of more time behind bars, the Deputy Prime Minister announced today (Sunday 20 November)... Under the tough new measures, all terrorist offenders who commit further crimes in jail – however minor - will be automatically referred within a week for a police investigation and potential prosecution. This will increase the likelihood of them being locked up for significantly longer and create a strong deterrent against further offending.

Currently, additional offences carried out inside jail – such as vandalising cells or dealing in contraband - are often dealt with by prison governors, with a maximum penalty of only 42 days added to an existing sentence. Today’s change means they could face much longer sentences if convicted in court. The agreement between HM Prison and Probation Service, Counter-Terror Policing and the Crown Prosecution Service fulfils a key recommendation from Jonathan Hall KC’s landmark independent review into terrorism in prisons.

Justice Secretary Dominic Raab has accused criminal barristers in England and Wales of doing "significant damage" to the legal system by striking over pay earlier this year. He told a committee of MPs the Criminal Bar Association (CBA) had behaved in an "irresponsible way". The strike was suspended in October after the government offered a new pay deal. The CBA says the action was necessary to prevent the collapse of the criminal justice system...

Mr Raab was questioned about his handling of the pay dispute by MPs and peers at a session of the justice select committee on Tuesday. The justice secretary and deputy prime minister had not met the CBA during its industrial action, but junior ministers had done so regularly. Given the dispute was swiftly ended by his short-lived successor Brandon Lewis, Labour's Lord Turner asked Mr Raab if he was up to the job of justice secretary. Lord Turner asked: "If you'd not been sacked lord chancellor, they'd still be on strike, wouldn't they?" In reply, Mr Raab said: "I made my position clear, I don't look back on it and think that I was wrong." He added: "I certainly don't believe for a moment that that was a warranted strike. I think it did significant damage. I think the CBA behaved in an irresponsible way."

Dominic Raab has been reminded that criminal barristers have suspended strike action over legal aid funding – not ended it - after the lord chancellor criticised the £54m deal negotiated by his predecessor. Raab told the House of Commons justice select committee on Tuesday that the criminal bar’s 'unwarranted' strike had caused significant damage. He questioned where the £54m bill for settlement would come from but insisted he would proceed with the deal ‘as a matter of good faith’.

Responding to his comments, CBA chair Kirsty Brimelow KC said bar leaders continued to work constructively with the Ministry of Justice to implement long-term reform to defence legal aid and immediate investment as agreed in the deal with Raab’s predecessor, Brandon Lewis MP. ‘The same first step investment now is required into prosecuting barristers’ fees,’ she added. ‘Without matching prosecution fees to defence fees the skeletal bar will continue to decrease and trials will continue to be ineffective. There are around 75,000 people awaiting trial before the Crown court.’ Brimelow said the deal accepted by the criminal bar was a landmark movement from the government ‘but it remains a first step towards properly funding the criminal justice system’. Barristers were forced to take action to prevent the criminal justice system completely collapsing, she added. ‘The backlog of cases was 41,000 before the pandemic and then was accelerated by Covid...

Lawyers should raise complaints about a rude judge at an early stage rather than let the problem grow and fester, the lord chief justice has told the Bar Council's flagship conference... Pausing for questions, Bar Council chair Mark Fenhalls KC asked how barristers should approach situations where they believe a judge has stepped out of line. Should they, for instance, approach their head of chambers or speak to the circuit leader?

Lord Burnett replied that there had always been difficult opponents and judges. ‘Tolerance for rudeness has just become less over the years. And the approach you and I experienced when we started at the bar, with a shrug of the shoulders and moving on, is no longer appropriate.’ There are many different ways of dealing with inappropriate behaviour, Lord Burnett said, but it depended on how bad someone perceives the behaviour to be and the personal feelings of the person unhappy about the behaviour... Lord Burnett acknowledged that lawyers might be concerned that making a complaint might be held against them. ‘That’s simply not so. It is much better to deal with the problem at an early stage rather than let them grow and fester.’