Issue 33  14th April 2018

Offensive Weapons Bill Proposed

The Home Office has announced plans for a new bill with new restrictions on offensive weapons.

The draft text is not available yet, but the announcement suggests that the bill will:

• Make it an offence to have offensive weapons per se in private places
• Ban knives sold online being sent to residential addresses
• Widen the definition of threatening with an offensive weapon
• Make it an offence to possess a knife on a further education premises
• Amend the definition of a flick knife to reflect changing weapon designs

'Castration drug may be offered to hundreds of sex offenders'

Hundreds of sex offenders may be offered “chemical castration” to stop their sexual urges in a move to prevent reoffending when they are released.

The Ministry of Justice said that ministers had received advice on making the treatment “available to more prisoners on a voluntary basis”. The chemical inhibits libido by suppressing testosterone levels.

Criminality, Google and the Right to be Forgotten

The man, who has not been named due to reporting restrictions surrounding the case, wanted search results about a past crime he had committed removed from the search engine. The judge, Mr Justice Mark Warby, ruled in his favour on Friday.

A press release can be found here and the judgment is here.

Guidance for Solicitors on Bar Strike

The Law Society has issued guidance for solicitors to apply to cases affected by the Bar's AGFS strike.

Thus, while a solicitor-advocate is free to take on such work if they choose, they are under no obligation to do so, and positively should not do so if they believe the matter to be beyond their competence. We do not consider that the unavailability of counsel – for whatever reason – creates an obligation on a Solicitor Advocate in the instructing firm to take over the formerly instructed barrister’s responsibility. Nor is there an obligation in any new cases to take on the advocacy if an external advocate cannot be found.