Issue 361  31st August 2024

The prison population in England and Wales has hit a record high in the wake of last month’s disorder. There are 88,350 people in jails - a rise of 998 in just a month - according to data released by the Ministry of Justice (MoJ) on Friday. The figures confirm the record was passed after 116 people were jailed in the last week, taking the prison population to its highest level since weekly figures were first published in 2011. Confirmation of the sharp rise comes 10 days before the start of an emergency early release scheme for some prisoners, which is being implemented to ease overcrowding. BBC News understands that at one point this week there were fewer than 100 spare cells across the whole of England and Wales...

An amnesty and compensation scheme for people in England and Wales who possess zombie-style knives and machetes is starting ahead of the weapons being banned next month. New legislation will close a loophole and make it an imprisonable offence to own, make, transport or sell a wide range of what are called ‘statement’ knives favoured by criminal gangs. People who currently legally possess such knives can hand them in to police stations without fear of prosecution and, in some cases, claim compensation.

The new law, which comes into force on 24 September, will cover the manufacture, supply, sale, possession and importation of these weapons. There are exemptions for people who have good reason to own the items, for example, a specialist machete used in forestry or an antique Samurai sword. But, people who do own long-bladed weapons are advised to check with their local police on whether they fall foul of the law...

Six in 10 crime victims do not feel confident that the Crown Prosecution Service is effective at prosecuting people accused of a crime, according to the largest ever survey conducted by the Victims’ Commissioner. The survey of 3,048 crime victims, published yesterday, also paints a picture of a justice system in which victims said they waited too long for a case to reach trial, felt unsupported during the court process, and, in some instances, were not told about the outcome of a case until they asked. Only 8% of the 1,991 respondents for whom a report was made to the police saw the case go to court and 6% saw a conviction. In a sample size of 158 people, 30% were not kept well informed about the progress of the case and 37% felt they waited too long before the case reached trial. In one respondent’s ‘unique’ case, there were 14 separate sentencing dates and times agreed – but each one failed and the victim did not know why...

Baljit Ubhey, director of strategy and policy at the CPS, said work to reduce delays includes 'stopping the back and forth' of case files between police and prosecutors, serving a full case on defendants before the first hearing to encourage an early guilty plea, and boosting the number of prosecutors. Measures to support victims better include new trauma-informed training programmes for frontline staff and hiring specialist victim liaison officers in every part of the country. Victims minister Alex Davies-Jones said the government will strengthen the victims' commissioner's powers to hold the system to account.

The Home Office has decided to continue its appeal against a high court ruling over a law that has seen hundreds of people criminalised for peaceful protests, a human rights group has claimed. Liberty accused the government on Wednesday of showing a “disregard for the rule of law” with its decision. The group won a legal challenge against the Home Office in May over protest regulations passed by statutory instrument last year under the then home secretary, Suella Braverman. The measures, which two judges found to be unlawful, lowered the threshold for what is considered “serious disruption” to community life from “significant” and “prolonged” to “more than minor”. The Home Office, now overseen by the new home secretary, Yvette Cooper, paused its plans to appeal against the ruling in July. At the time Liberty said it was hopeful of being able to “find a resolution in the case”. But on Wednesday night, the group said that the government had decided to continue with its appeal after talks to resolve the dispute failed.

Thousands of women who were sexually abused as children could be unable to obtain justice because of an anomaly in the law of England and Wales that is being challenged at the European court of human rights. The case has been brought by Lucy (not her real name), who was 13 when a man 22 years her senior began having sex with her. Despite him admitting it, police told her charges could not be brought because she did not report the alleged offence in time. The problem results from the 1956 Sexual Offences Act, which dictated that prosecution of the offence of sexual intercourse with a girl under 16, which applies when a girl aged 13 to 15 factually consented (even though as children they could not consent in law), “may not be commenced more than 12 months after the offence charged”. The law was changed by the Sexual Offences Act 2003 but it does not apply retrospectively. This means that if the alleged offence of sexual intercourse with a girl under 16 occurred prior to 1 May 2004 the limitation period still applies... She is seeking a declaration from the ECHR that the 12-month time bar, which means girls would have to have reported the alleged offence before reaching adulthood (by age 16 at the latest), violates her rights protected by the European convention on human rights.