Issue 342  20th April 2024

Despicable people who create sexually explicit ‘deepfakes’ will face prosecution under a new law announced by the government today (16 April 2024). Under the new offence, those who create these horrific images without consent face a criminal record and an unlimited fine. If the image is then shared more widely offenders could be sent to jail. The new law will mean that if someone creates a sexually explicit deepfake, even if they have no intent to share it but purely want to cause alarm, humiliation or distress to the victim, they will be committing a criminal offence. It will also strengthen existing offences, as if a person both creates this kind of image and then shares it, the CPS could charge them with two offences, potentially leading to their sentence being increased...

Last year, reforms in the Online Safety Act criminalised the sharing of ‘deepfake’ intimate images for the first time. This new offence, which will be introduced through an amendment to the Criminal Justice Bill, will mean anyone who makes these sexually explicit deepfake images of adults maliciously and without consent will face the consequences of their actions...

Scores of people who maintain they were wrongly convicted of rape and murder will have fresh DNA testing conducted in their cases after Andrew Malkinson’s exoneration. The announcement by the miscarriage of justice body for England, Wales and Northern Ireland, the Criminal Cases Review Commission (CCRC), comes ahead of the publication of a major review of its handling of Malkinson’s case. The review, led by Chris Henley KC, is expected to be published in the coming weeks and is likely to be critical of the body.

The CCRC will go back and test rape and murder cases from before 2016 that it has previously refused to refer to the court of appeal, and where DNA was a factor in identification. Emily Bolton, Malkinson’s solicitor at the law charity Appeal, said: “This announcement is a stunning admission that after missing DNA testing opportunities in Andrew Malkinson’s case, the CCRC may also have denied justice to hundreds of other innocent people. If the CCRC had begun this exercise back when DNA-17 testing became available in 2014, it could have spared Andrew Malkinson extra years wrongly imprisoned.”

New measures laid in Parliament today (16 April 2024) will make it easier for police chiefs to sack rogue officers during misconduct hearings. Police chief constables will be given the responsibility of chairing the hearings which decide on the removal of officers found guilty of police misconduct. By giving these powers to chief constables, police leaders will be held increasingly accountable for their own officers and be able to influence any dismissal decisions impacting their own force...

In some circumstances, such as where misconduct allegations are more minor, chiefs will be able to delegate their role on the panel to a senior police staff member to ensure best possible use of public and policing resources. Under the new measures, police and crime commissioners (PCCs) will also have greater responsibility for scrutinising the decisions made by dismissals panels. Chiefs, or in some cases senior police officers, will need to provide justifications for decisions where requested. For example, where it has been decided that a misconduct hearing should be held in private. The democratically elected commissioners will be tasked with holding those making dismissals decisions to account. PCCs will choose independent members to form the rest of the panel and sit alongside the chair and supportive legal advisors. This will ensure that any conflicts of interest are avoided to uphold the fairness of any hearings...

The Post Office was urged by its external law firm to “try and suppress” disclosure of a key document for “as long as possible” as branch owner-operators tried to mount legal action against the state-owned postal company, a public inquiry has heard. Rodric Williams, a senior in-house lawyer at the Post Office giving evidence to the inquiry into the Horizon IT scandal, was asked about an email sent to him in which it was suggested that his employer should withhold disclosing its investigation guidelines as they could harm its defence to a lawsuit brought by post office operators. The inquiry is looking into how hundreds of these individuals were pursued and prosecuted for more than a decade by the Post Office over alleged financial shortfalls in their branch accounts, which it has since emerged were caused by bugs in the organisation’s Horizon IT system.

The inquiry was told on Thursday that Williams, who is the head of legal (dispute resolution and brand) at the Post Office, was sent an email in 2016 by its external law firm Womble Bond Dickinson (WBD) at the very early stages of the high court lawsuit that paved the way to the convicted post office operators ultimately being exonerated...

A police officer who held the hand of his dying colleague after she was shot 40 years ago is launching a private prosecution of one of the suspects. PC Yvonne Fletcher was killed when gunmen inside London's then Libyan embassy fired into a demonstration outside. Her colleague, John Murray, is going to court to demand the remaining key suspect is tried for murder. The case is being launched on the 40th anniversary of PC Fletcher's death. The first court hearing is expected in the coming weeks.

PC Fletcher, 25, was gunned down while she and other officers controlled crowds protesting against the Libyan dictator Colonel Muammar Gaddafi. All the shots were fired from inside the embassy, also known as the Libyan People's Bureau. After a 10-day stage, Margaret Thatcher's government allowed all the Libyans to leave because they were protected by diplomatic immunity - and to this day nobody has been charged in relation to PC Fletcher's death. In 2017 the Crown Prosecution Service dropped a possible case against one of the suspects because some of the evidence against him could not be used in court because it related to secret national security matters. But Mr Murray, who was with PC Fletcher, says he now has a legal team to launch a rare private prosecution for murder against Saleh Ibrahim Mabrouk...