About
A free weekly collection of criminal law links - for practitioners, law students, and anyone with an interest in the criminal justice system of England and Wales.
Curated by Sam Willis, a barrister at 5 King's Bench Walk.
News
'Increased sentencing powers for magistrates to address prisons crisis'
... The Lord Chancellor confirmed the plans to allow magistrates to issue custodial sentences for up to 12 months for a single offence – a doubling of their current powers. The move will save approximately 2,000 days in the Crown Court, so that time can be reserved for the most serious and complex cases. Bolstered powers will better support victims, with some who have been waiting months and even years to see justice done due to a system in disarray. It will also help the government drive down the record remand population – those who are in prison while they await their trial – and relieve pressure on prison capacity which was left at the brink of collapse...
The Statutory Instrument to increase sentencing powers is due to be laid on 28 October and changes will come into force on 18 November.
Ministers to give magistrates in England and Wales more sentencing powers'
...the latest move to give magistrates greater powers has been condemned by barristers, who have called it a “kneejerk policy” that would “simply make things worse” for overcrowded prisons... Giving magistrates further sentencing powers was tried before by the then justice secretary Dominic Raab, who doubled jail sentences in 2022. The scheme was dropped after a year. Critics claimed that magistrates increased the numbers of people serving short sentences, putting more pressure on overcrowded prisons...
A spokesperson for the Criminal Bar Association said the decision to extend magistrates’ sentencing powers failed to deal with crown court delays: “Every week, trials due to start over the coming months are being put back up to a year. Worst affected from the cut to allow judges to sit are all our London crown courts and related prisons and all our crown courts in the north-west in and around Manchester. The latest knee-jerk policy decision to double magistrates sentencing powers simply won’t address this issue.”
'Ministers complain to Starmer over spending cuts'
Several cabinet ministers have written to the prime minister and the Treasury two weeks ahead of the Budget, to voice concerns over the scale of cuts their departments may face. There are fears that steep spending cuts will be needed to meet what Whitehall sources have suggested is a £40bn funding gap. In what some say is an unusual move, ministers from hard-pressed departments are calling for a last-minute rethink of the Budget, “going over the head” over the chancellor, to address the prime minister directly...
Bloomberg reported that ministers had expressed concern that the proposed cuts could be as high as 20% next year. They reportedly include Deputy Prime Minister Angela Rayner who runs the Ministry of Housing, Communities and Local Government, as well as Justice Secretary Shabana Mahmood and Transport Secretary Louise Haigh. None of the ministers denied the report...
Danny Shaw, a commentator on justice and policing affairs, who has previously advised the Home Secretary Yvette Cooper, said cuts of that order would be "devastating" for the justice department. "It would completely destroy in many ways the criminal justice system in terms of the courts, probation, prisons and legal aid," he said. There is already a backlog of around 68,000 cases in the crown courts, he added.
'Northern stops railcard prosecutions'
Northern Trains has confirmed to RAIL that it is halting all current cases of passengers prosecuted for using 16-25 Railcards to claim discounts at the wrong time of day. The operator is also reviewing up to 25 previous similar prosecutions...
Northern has now issued guidance on prosecutions for using 16-25 railcards to claim discounts at the wrong time of day. The company says it is withdrawing any live cases and will also look to review previous prosecutions relating to this specific issue. There are fewer than 25 cases since Northern Trains was taken under Department for Transport ownership in 2020 that need to be reviewed...
Cases
R v Lucy Connolly - Sentencing Remarks
Lucy Connolly you have pleaded guilty to the offence of distributing material with the intention of stirring up racial hatred. Sadly this is one of a number of cases that this court has had to deal with arising from civil unrest following the very tragic events in Southport on the 29th July 2024...
In relation to your culpability this is clearly a category A case – as both prosecution and your counsel agree, because you intended to incite serious violence. In relation to harm it is again agreed, correctly, that what you did encouraged activity which threatened or endangered life and therefore falls within category 1. There is also further relevant factor in relation to harm in that you sought, and achieved, widespread dissemination of your statement by posting it on social media... The sentence on count 1 therefore is one of 31 months imprisonment...
A.L. and E.J. v. France (applications nos. 44715/20 and 47930/21)
The Court declared inadmissible the applications in the case of A.L. and E.J. v. France. Both applications concerned the remote retrieval of user data from the encrypted telecommunications tool EncroChat and their sharing with the United Kingdom law-enforcement authorities. EncroChat was an encrypted mobile-phone telecommunications tool, for which more than 66,000 handsets had been distributed covertly in 122 countries.
The Court noted that that the EncroChat user data had been collected at the French authorities’ initiative by means of a data retrieval measure that had been ordered in the context of criminal proceedings opened by the specialised inter-regional division of the Lille criminal court. The data relating to EncroChat users located in the UK had been transferred, as evidence already in the French authorities’ possession, for use in other criminal cases pursuant to a European Investigation Order (EIO) issued by the UK Crown Prosecution Service. Remotely retrieved data had thus been included as prosecution evidence in proceedings against both applicants in the UK.
The Court concluded that there had been a remedy available to the applicants in France by which they might have effectively challenged the data transfer measure taken pursuant to the EIO issued by the UK authorities, together with the data retrieval measure.
Other
'Attorney General's 2024 Bingham Lecture on the rule of law'
... This evening, I would like to talk about the necessary response to these challenges, through restoration of our reputation as a country that upholds the rule of law at every turn and by embedding resilience to rebuff the populist challenge. Restoration and resilience. I’m going to begin by setting out the nature of the challenge as well as proffering some thoughts on the relationship between the rule of law, democracy and human rights. I will then turn to three themes that I consider lie at the heart of the restoration and resilience project firstly, the rebuilding our reputation as a leader in the field of international law and the international rules based order; secondly, the strengthening of Parliament’s role in upholding the rule of law and thirdly the promotion of a rule of law culture...
'Bitcoin: Alleged hacker searched 'signs the FBI is after you'
A man arrested in connection with a hack of the US markets regulator's X account searched "how can I know for sure if I am being investigated by the FBI," according to court documents. Eric Council Jr, 25, of Athens, Georgia, is also alleged to have searched for "signs that you are under investigation by law enforcement... even if you have not been contacted by them". He is accused of being part of a group which hacked the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) social media in January to make a fake post about Bitcoin, causing the cryptocurrency to surge in value...