Issue 337  16th March 2024

Hundreds of innocent sub-postmasters wrongly convicted as a result of the Horizon scandal will have convictions quashed following landmark legislation introduced today [Wednesday 13 March]. This blanket exoneration, delivered through the Post Office (Horizon System) Offences Bill, will quash convictions brought about by erroneous Horizon evidence, clearing the names of many people who have had their lives ruined...

Under the proposed Bill, convictions will be automatically quashed if they meet the following criteria:

• Were prosecuted by the Post Office or Crown Prosecution Service (CPS).
• Were for offences carried out in connection with Post Office business between 1996 and 2018.
• Were for relevant offences such as theft, fraud and false accounting.
• Were against sub-postmasters, their employees, officers, family members or direct employees of the Post Office working in a Post Office that used the Horizon system software.

The Bill will extend and apply to England and Wales. The Government will continue to work closely with their counterparts in Scotland and Northern Ireland as they develop their own plans. Regardless of where or how convictions are quashed, redress will be paid to victims across the whole of the UK on the same basis... The Government acknowledges the risk that this legislation could quash convictions of people who were genuinely guilty of a crime. In line with the wishes of campaigners the Government will make all efforts to ensure this is targeted on those wrongly convicted and make sure nobody who defrauded the system is able to access taxpayer-funded compensation.  Before receiving financial redress, sub-postmasters will be required to sign a legal statement vowing that they did not commit the crime for which they were originally convicted. Any person found to have signed a statement falsely in order to gain financial redress may be guilty of fraud.

Prisoners could be released from jail two months early, the justice secretary has announced, as the pressure on overcrowded prisons intensifies. In a written ministerial statement, Alex Chalk said prisons in England and Wales would have licence to release “certain low-level offenders” up to 35 days before their sentence was due to end. Officials said the statement would also allow the UK government to extend early release to up to 60 days if necessary in the future. Male prisons are 99.7% full, with just 238 spaces left out of an operational capacity of 85,000, according to the Daily Telegraph, while women’s jails are 96.9% full with just 118 spaces left...

Foreign prisoners will get £1,500 if they agree to be freed early to be deported to their home country in a major expansion of a scheme to tackle the jail overcrowding crisis. Alex Chalk, the Justice Secretary, has extended a scheme so that foreign offenders can go back to their home country 18 months before their release date, an increase of six months from the previous 12 months. They are entitled to £1,500 each and a further £1,500 each for their partner, spouse and any of their children aged under 18 as long as they agree to deportation and a ban on returning to the UK. Once home, they do not have to serve any more jail time.

The early removal scheme, originally set up 17 years ago, is being expanded as a central part of Mr Chalk’s efforts to double the number of foreign prisoners cleared out of jails in England and Wales from 1,800 to 3,600 in the next year...

The Crown Prosecution Service (CPS) has welcomed a report by the University of Warwick into the handling of rape and serious sexual offence (RASSO) cases. An independent academic team led by Professor Vanessa Munro from the University of Warwick evaluated the design and impact of activities piloted under Operation Soteria – the work to overhaul the prosecution and handling of RASSO cases... The final report concludes that the new operating model, now rolled out to all CPS areas, builds effectively on many of the key insights of Operation Soteria initiatives and makes commendable commitments to ensuring they are part of a consistent national approach...

Though the research has not collected data on the implementation of the new operating model since its launch in July 2023, it concludes - based on analysis of Operation Soteria pilots - that many of the measures contained in the model can bring a real improvement the CPS handling of rape cases. These improvements include the benefits of police and CPS speaking at an early stage in investigations, dedicated RASSO victim liaison officers, the use of multi-agency scrutiny panels to look in detail at both charged and uncharged cases and dedicated Independent Sexual Violence Advocate (ISVA) mailboxes to increase and improve the quality of communication with these third sector advocates. The final report highlighted that the ambition of Operation Soteria was unprecedented, but that the CPS has more to do to embed the national operating model effectively and sustainably. It also warned there are areas where potential ‘slippage’ in implementation should be guarded against, including in relation to reviewing lawyers’ increased presence in courtrooms, victim communication obligations, and a need for a future focus on strong leadership and shifts in organisational culture...

Over a quarter of pupil barristers personally experienced or observed bullying, harassment, or discrimination during their pupillage, new research has shown. Twenty-six percent of the 173 pupils surveyed as part of the Bar Council Pupil Survey 2024 reported witnessing or experiencing inappropriate behaviour. A significantly higher number of women experienced these issues personally, 28% of those surveyed having personal experience compared to only 3% of men. Those with disabilities also faced higher levels of bullying, harassment, and discrimination, 41% of disabled pupils reporting an incident compared to 13% of pupils without a disability. Elsewhere, the survey notes that 31% of pupils succeeded in securing pupillage on their first attempt, with 34% making the cut on the second attempt, 18% on the third attempt, and 17% after four or more attempts...

The first IPP prisoner to have his parole bid held in public has revealed how each day is “torture” serving a sentence with no release date. Controversial imprisonment for public protection (IPP) sentences were scrapped in 2012 amid human rights concerns, but not retrospectively, leaving thousands languishing in jail for years beyond their minimum tariff. Among them is Nicholas Bidar, 36, who was handed an indefinite jail term with an eight-year minimum tariff for a string of robberies and using a gun to resist arrest aged 20 in 2008. But more than 15 years later he is still being held in a maximum-security Category A prison with no release date.

To raise awareness of his plight, he has successfully applied to be the first IPP prisoner to have his parole hearing held in public after new laws came into force to increase transparency around parole decisions...