Issue 344  4th May 2024

PCCs are elected officials whose role is to help ensure police forces function effectively but not to run those forces themselves. They scrutinise force performance, set the annual budget for their force and set out policing priorities in a Police and Crime Plan...

Greater powers for the National Crime Agency and police to seize, freeze and destroy cryptoassets used by criminals have come into force today. Organised criminals, including drug dealers, fraudsters and terrorists, are known to increasingly use cryptoassets to launder the proceeds of crime and raise money. The NCA’s National Assessment Centre estimates that illicit crypto transactions linked to the UK are likely to have reached at least £1.2 billion in 2021, if not significantly higher.

To tackle this emerging threat, the government has updated proceeds of crime and terror legislation, making it easier for UK law enforcement to effectively investigate, seize and recover illicit cryptoassets. These changes include:

• Police will no longer be required to make an arrest before seizing crypto from a suspect. This will make it easier to take assets which are known to have been criminally obtained, even if sophisticated criminals are able to protect their anonymity or are based overseas
• Items that could be used to give information to help an investigation, such as written passwords or memory sticks, can be seized.
• Officers will be able to transfer illicit cryptoassets into an electronic wallet which is controlled by law enforcement, meaning criminals can no longer access it.
• UK law enforcement will be able to destroy a crypto asset if returning it to circulation is not conducive to the public good. Privacy coins, for example, are a form of cryptocurrency that grant an extremely high degree of anonymity and are often used for money laundering.
• Victims will also be able to apply for money belonging to them in a cryptoassets account to be released to them.

Lawyers for the Post Office arranged a secret meeting with a judge to prevent disclosure to defence solicitors in a criminal trial, the Post Office Inquiry heard yesterday. Solicitor Martin Smith and his barrister colleague Simon Clarke met the judge at Birmingham Crown Court in 2013 on the eve of a trial of a sub-postmaster accused of theft. Around the same time, the interim report by forensic accountants Second Sight had revealed potential problems with the Horizon system which had been the basis for previous prosecutions. The prosecuting lawyers applied for public interest immunity on the report, successfully persuading the judge that the defence solicitors should not be made aware of it.

Giving evidence to the inquiry, Smith accepted he was the instructing solicitor on the case but stressed he was only present at the meeting to take notes and he could not remember any details of what was said to the judge. The inquiry heard of several issues with disclosure as the Post Office and its representatives approached the mediation scheme and potential reviews of past convictions...

The Lady Chief Justice has created a new Transparency and Open Justice Board. Chaired by Mr Justice Nicklin, the new board will lead and coordinate the promotion of transparency and open justice across the courts and tribunals of England & Wales. The members of the board and an outline of its work are set out in the terms of reference that are published today. The board’s first task will be to engage widely in setting key objectives to guide its work. Thereafter, and in partnership with HMCTS and MoJ, the board will support and coordinate a programme of changes to promote transparency and open justice. The board will establish a stakeholder committee to assist in this work...