Issue 277  21st January 2023

All police forces will be asked to check staff against national databases to identify if anyone "slipped through the net", the Home Office says. It follows the case of David Carrick who admitted dozens of rape and sexual offences as a Met Police officer. The National Police Chiefs Council (NPCC) will ask forces to check current staff recruited before tougher vetting of recruits was introduced in 2006. The College of Policing will also be asked to strengthen vetting procedures.

Carrick, 48, was officially sacked on Tuesday after he pleaded guilty to 49 offences against 12 women over two decades. Prime Minister Rishi Sunak said Carrick's crimes were an "absolutely despicable" abuse of power which needed to be "addressed immediately". Speaking after a joint visit to a London police station with Met Police Commissioner Sir Mark Rowley, the prime minister said: "All police forces across the country have been told to check all of their serving officers and staff against national police databases to identify and root out anybody who shouldn't be serving...

Suella Braverman has announced an internal review of the Met’s dismissal processes after the failure to remove the serial rapist David Carrick as a serving police officer despite multiple allegations of misogynistic abuse over two decades. The home secretary told MPs that “bureaucracy and process appear to have prevailed over ethics and common sense” in the UK’s biggest force after Carrick was allowed to continue as a firearms officer. Labour said her response was weak, as several Conservative MPs demanded more measures to tackle misogyny in the police.

Carrick was formally sacked on Tuesday after pleading guilty to 49 offences including dozens of rapes. Sir Mark Rowley, the head of the Met, announced that all 45,000 officers and staff would be rechecked for previously missed offending.

The Home Secretary has today (17 January 2023) appointed Lord (David) Anderson KBE KC to carry out an independent review of the Investigatory Powers Act 2016. The Investigatory Powers Act provides a framework for the use of investigatory powers by the security and intelligence agencies, law enforcement and other public authorities. These powers cover:

• the interception of communications
• the retention and acquisition of communications data
• and equipment interference for obtaining communications and other data

The act also makes provision relating to the security and intelligence agencies’ retention and examination of bulk personal datasets. The effective operation of the act ensures that there is appropriate oversight in place to give the public confidence in the use of these important powers. Section 260 of the act requires that the secretary of state prepare a report on the operation of the act during a 6 month period between May 2022 and November 2022. This report will be published and laid in Parliament in due course. Lord Anderson previously held the post of Independent Reviewer of Terrorism Legislation for 6 years, during which he carried out 2 independent reviews which informed the original act.

The latest Criminal Law Reform Now Network (CLRN Network) report calls for a change to the law, which would make deceiving a person to induce them into sexual activity a new crime. The new offence - inducing sexual activity by deception - would potentially apply to all forms of deception. It would avoid what the report calls a ‘legislative pre-judgement on good/bad reasons to engage in sexual activity’.

The academics, practising lawyers, and other legal experts who make up the CLRN Network say that because no crime of inducing sexual activity by deception currently exists, courts have instead needed to decide that a deception has had the effect of nullifying the supposed consent of the victim. However, the courts currently struggle to say which sorts of deceptions have this effect, and which do not. One example of this difficulty arises in a recent controversial case called R v Lawrance (2020). Lawrance deceived his partner by saying that he had had a vasectomy when he had not. This led to the victim (R) agreeing to have unprotected sex with him. Lawrance was initially convicted of rape and other sexual offences at the Crown Court because it was held that his deception nullified R's consent. But the Court of Appeal overturned the decision of the Crown Court, saying that only deceptions relating to the ‘physical performance of the sexual act’ should nullify consent, and that a lie about having had a vasectomy did not relate to the physical performance of the sexual act. At the same time, it recognised a previous decision of the High Court where it was held that surreptitious removal of a condom (the use of which had been insisted upon) was capable of invalidating consent.

The CLRN Network's approach would avoid reliance on such potentially artificial distinctions and create an offence that straightforwardly allows any deception which induced agreement to sexual activity to be the basis of an offence, subject only to the possibility of a reasonable excuse.

Game-changing X-ray body scanners have foiled more than 28,000 attempts to smuggle drugs, phones and weapons behind bars as the war on prison rule breakers picks up speed. Over the last 2 years, more than 90 new advanced scanners have been installed in all closed male jails, producing high-resolution images of concealed contraband so staff can stop more dangerous items from getting in and causing havoc on prison landings. This tough new security has captured and confiscated illegal contraband concealed on prisoners including mobile phones, vapes and improvised weapons...