Issue 385  15th February 2025

Policing has been left in a "hopeless position", Met Commissioner Sir Mark Rowley said, after the High Court ruled an officer accused of rape could not be dismissed because the process was fundamentally unfair. The ruling came after Sgt Lino Di Maria mounted a legal challenge after having his vetting - a background check - removed following sexual assault allegations, which he denied and was not charged over. Sir Mark said the force now did not have any mechanism to get rid of officers who were not fit to keep their vetted status, including officers who "cannot be trusted to work with women" or "enter the homes of vulnerable people". However, Mrs Justice Lang said the dismissal process which had been used by the Met was unlawful as those suspected of wrongdoing were denied an opportunity to defend themselves. The ruling has huge implications for the ability of police chiefs to sack officers and is a major blow to Sir Mark's pledge to root out people who he says should not be in the force. He said the Met would appeal against the decision.

The Council has published two new guidelines for sentencing offenders convicted of:

• blackmail, and
• kidnap or false imprisonment

The new guidelines are the first for these serious offences. They have been developed through consultation to help judges sentence the wide range of offending covered by cases of blackmail, kidnap or false imprisonment. The new guidelines apply to adults sentenced in England and Wales and will come into effect on 1 April 2025.

The family court has allowed an application for committal for contempt of court to be brought due to the ‘inability of the criminal court to list a trial within a reasonable time frame’. The trial, over an alleged breach of a non-molestation order, had been relisted for December 2026.

The claimant brought the application after her former partner is alleged to have five breaches of a non-molestation order. The claimant originally complained to the police about the alleged breaches. One is the subject of a criminal prosecution. The family court judgment, in Lydia Lafronte v Aaron Johnson, said the trial over the alleged breach was listed for 16 October 2024 but vacated ‘due to the inability of the CPS to instruct counsel’ and relisted for 18 October. It was vacated again for the same reason, and relisted for December 2026. Her Honour Judge Madeleine Reardon added: ‘In those circumstances, not unreasonably, the claimant took the view that she wished to progress with this application and at the last hearing in November 2024 this court, which had until then adjourned the proceedings to give precedence to the criminal trial, agreed and listed this final hearing.’ She added: ‘Faced with inordinate delays in the criminal proceedings, this court took the decision that the contempt proceedings should no longer await the criminal trial and this final hearing was listed. It is unusual for a civil court to hear an application for committal based on the breach of a non-molestation order. That it has happened in this case is due solely to the inability of the criminal court to list a trial within a reasonable time frame.’

The Attorney General has rejected calls for the Court of Appeal to review the length of Southport murderer Axel Rudakubana's jail sentence. Rudakubana, 18, is serving a minimum 52-year sentence for the murder of Elsie Dot Stancombe, seven, Bebe King, six, and Alice da Silva Aguiar, nine, in Southport in July 2024. At his sentencing, the judge said Rudakubana, who was 17 when he carried out the attacks, would have been given a whole life prison order had he been an adult at the time.

In a statement issued on Friday evening, Lord Hermer KC said after "careful consideration" he had "concluded that this case cannot properly be referred to the Court of Appeal". He added that no one would want the families to be put through an unnecessary further court process "where there is no realistic legal basis for an increased sentence". Rudakubana's minimum term of 52 years means that he cannot be considered for release until he has served that amount of time in prison. Lord Hermer said Rudakubana's sentence was the "second-longest sentence imposed by the courts in English history". He added: "Rudakubana will likely never be released and will spend the rest of his life in jail."

Safeguarding Britain’s national security - a key pillar of the government’s Plan for Change - and protecting citizens from crime - will become founding principles of the UK’s approach to the responsible development of artificial intelligence from today (Friday 14 February), as the Technology Secretary sets out his vision for a revitalised AI Security Institute in Munich. Speaking at the Munich Security Conference and just days after the conclusion of the AI Action Summit in Paris, Peter Kyle has today recast the AI Safety Institute the ‘AI Security Institute’. This new name will reflect its focus on serious AI risks with security implications, such as how the technology can be used to develop chemical and biological weapons, how it can be used to carry out cyber-attacks, and enable crimes such as fraud and child sexual abuse.

The Institute will also partner across government, including with the Defence Science and Technology Laboratory, the Ministry of Defence’s science and technology organisation, to assess the risks posed by frontier AI. As part of this update, the Institute will also launch a new criminal misuse team which will work jointly with the Home Office to conduct research on a range of crime and security issues which threaten to harm British citizens. One such area of focus will be the use of AI to make child sexual abuse images, with this new team exploring methods to help to prevent abusers from harnessing the technology to carry out their appalling crimes. This will support work announced earlier this month to make it illegal to own AI tools which have been optimised to make images of child sexual abuse...