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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
'Barristers reject Leveson plans'
Criminal barristers have firmly rebuffed Sir Brian Leveson’s proposals to restrict jury trials and move a tranche of cases to a judge sitting with two magistrates. A seven-day snapshot survey commissioned by the Criminal Bar Association (CBA) and conducted by Professor Katrin Hohl, City of St George’s, University of London, received a weighty response, with 2,029 criminal barristers taking part. In her Monday Message this week, CBA chair Mary Prior KC said 93% opposed removing the right to appeal a judge’s decision to move a case to the new Crown Court Bench Division (CCBD) rather than offer a jury trial, and 78% opposed judge-only trials for complex and serious fraud. Some 92% and 91%, respectively, opposed allowing CCBD cases to include sexual offences against children, and sexual offences against adults. 84% opposed the removal of a defendant’s automatic right to appeal against conviction from the magistrates’ court, and 86% were against CCBDs hearing cases involving violence against women and girls, including stalking and voyeurism...
Asked for their top two priorities for the justice system, 82% of CBA members said increasing Crown Court sitting days, and 71% said increasing court efficiency by ensuring prisoners reach court in time, Wi-Fi, audio and video equipment works and any interpreters required are present. 27% said Crown Court judges should have a background in criminal law, and 10% voted to fix the leaks, lifts and other building disrepairs...
'AI to stop prison violence before it happens'
Prison officers will use artificial intelligence (AI) to stop violence before it breaks out under new plans set out by the Lord Chancellor today (31 July). Under the Ministry of Justice’s AI Action Plan artificial intelligence predicts the risk an offender could pose and informs decisions to put dangerous prisoners under tighter supervision to cut crime and deliver swifter justice for victims. This will help to cut reoffending and make our streets safe, part of the Plan for Change.
AI will be used across prisons, probation and courts to better track offenders and assess the risk they pose with tools that can predict violence behind bars, uncover secret messages sent by prisoners and connect offender records across different systems. The AI violence predictor analyses different factors such as a prisoner’s age and previous involvement in violent incidents while in custody. This will help prison officers assess threat levels on wings and intervene or move prisoners before violence escalates. Another AI tool will be able to digitally scan the contents of mobile phones seized from prisoners to rapidly flag messages that could provide intelligence on potential crimes being committed behind bars, such as secret code words. This will allow staff to discover potential threats of violence to other inmates or prison officers as well as plans to escape and smuggle in weapons or contraband...
'CCRC launches new project to investigate IPP/DPP sentences imposed on young people'
The Criminal Cases Review Commission (CCRC) is re-examining historic applications to review DPPs or IPPs imposed on children and young adults. Sentences of Imprisonment for Public protection (IPP) are indeterminate sentences, intended for serious offenders who were considered “dangerous” to the public, but whose crimes did not merit a life sentence. Detention for Public Protection (DPP) sentences are also indeterminate, and were previously used for individuals under 18 years old. They were both abolished in 2012, but current IPP and DPP prisoners must still obtain Parole Board approval to be released. The CCRC has previously referred 12 cases to the appellate courts where IPPs were a factor. Eight have either had their sentence quashed, reduced or substituted.
This project has been developed following two Court of Appeal decisions to quash IPP sentences. Leighton Williams [2024] and Darren Hilling [2024] were both young adults when they were sentenced. In both outcomes, the Court determined that the sentencing judge had failed to attach the necessary importance to the age and maturity of the offender before giving the sentence. The CCRC has launched a review of historic applications to ensure that any which may benefit from these decisions could be looked at again, and a specialist progress group, led by a commissioner, are working on current applications to determine whether any could be referred to the appellate courts as a result of these developments...
'Tasers to be used in prisons to tackle 'unacceptably high' levels of violence'
Tasers can be used in prisons for the first time to tackle "unacceptably high" levels of violence, as part of a new trial. Justice Secretary Shabana Mahmood has said she is "determined to keep prison staff safe". Specialist officers from two bases in Oxfordshire and Doncaster can now be deployed to incidents in adult male prisons in England and Wales, equipped with Tasers...
At first, specialist national officers from the two bases can be deployed if such incidents occur. It's understood at the moment these teams get 800 callouts a year - averaging just over two a day. The trial will run until enough data is collected to determine whether Tasers should be rolled out more widely. Ms Mahmood said she intends to have further updates in the autumn and will "consider" whether local staff inside jails can use them...
'Reading Crown Court tests fast-track case pilot'
A fast-track trial pilot is under way at the Crown court in Reading to try and expedite cases which are most likely to crack, after the backlog of cases reached a 25-year high last month. The Gazette understands the initiative will see certain short bail cases, for which evidence suggests that the matter could or should resolve without a trial, placed into the ‘fast track’ and brought forward rather than being listed for the future. One of Reading’s eight courts has been dedicated to the initiative. It is understood that the move will not affect the court’s ability to list within 12 months cases involving rape, children, serious sexual offences and vulnerable complainants, or the prioritisation of cases where the defendant is in custody...
'Ministry of Justice confirms new legal aid portal following cyber-attack'
The Ministry of Justice has confirmed that a new legal aid portal to replace the system attacked by hackers will go live in September. However, the new portal may not mark the end of the disruption endured by practitioners since May, when the old system was taken offline. In a further development, the MoJ today revealed that more personal data may have been accessed during April's cyber-attack than the department realised. As the Gazette revealed yesterday, legal aid providers were informed that a new portal will be coming in two months' time. The Ministry of Justice has now confirmed that the new ‘identity access management solution’ will be called Sign into Legal Aid Services. Going live in September, it will give practitioners secure access to digital services ‘as they become available’...
Cases
R v Jason Plummer [2025] EWCA Crim 1036
... The prosecution case was based on an alleged confession which was said to have been made by the appellant to a fellow prisoner, Christopher Dunne, while on remand for other offences in Bedford Prison in June 1997. The confession was recorded in a witness statement dated 18 December 1997 by Mr Dunne. In June 1997, it was agreed, Mr Dunne shared a cell with the appellant, and the witness statement says that in two conversations, while he was intoxicated with cannabis, the appellant confessed to a number of crimes, including the murder of Ms. Cartwright-Gilbert.
Mr. Dunne died in 1999. The witness statement he had made was read to the jury by leave of the judge, who ruled that it was admissible as hearsay evidence, applying section 121 of the Criminal Justice Act 2003. He further ruled that it should not be excluded under either section 126 of that Act or section 78 of the Police and Criminal Evidence Act 1984. He did not consider after the close of the prosecution case whether the evidence was so unconvincing that the appellant’s conviction would be unsafe as required by section 125 of the 2003 Act, and was not asked to do so...
... We have concluded that this case should have been stopped under section 125 of the 2003 Act at the conclusion of the evidence. The judge’s failure to do that clearly therefore renders the conviction unsafe. We do not criticise the judge for failing to address this question, because he was not asked to do so. It was only after this trial that this court in BOB construed section 125 as placing a duty on the court to determine the questions raised in section 125 in such a case, even if no party raises the question...
R v ANL [2025] EWCA Crim 969
... During the deliberations, the judge received a note from the jury. Although he was unable to reveal the content, he told the court that he had reason to believe that if the jury were unable to reach a verdict on count 1 in relation to the appellant, it was likely that they would be able to reach a verdict in relation to count 2 in his case. On the morning of 17th January 2025 he received a further note indicating that they were unable to reach a verdict in relation to murder but had proceeded to consider count 2 and had reached a verdict on that count. The matter was discussed in court and the judge subsequently discharged the jury from returning a verdict on count 1 in ANL’s case, and invited them to consider count 2. They did so and subsequently returned a unanimous verdict of guilty in relation to manslaughter on the afternoon of 17th January 2025. As a result of the jury failing to agree in the first trial, a co-defendant also faces a retrial for manslaughter...
... The rule which we are invited to apply (“the Rule”) provides that where a defendant is charged with two or more offences which are alternatives to each other in the strict legal sense, he or she cannot be convicted of both or all of them. If, therefore, there is a conviction for a lesser offence then a verdict of guilty cannot be returned on any more serious offence, either at the same trial which resulted in the conviction or at a retrial following that first trial. Any attempt to secure such a conviction at a retrial would be an abuse of the process of the court. The most common situation where such an attempt may be made is following the discharge of the jury which returned the guilty verdict of the lesser offence but which could not agree a verdict on the more serious offence. The Rule applies strictly whatever view the judge may take of the requirements of justice...
... That being so, we hold that there is no authority which justifies the Rule, and a finding that the mere existence of a conviction for manslaughter is a bar to a trial, or retrial, for murder arising out of the same killing...
Other
'New Presiding Judges Appointed'
The Lady Chief Justice, with the concurrence of the Lord Chancellor, has announced the appointment of three Presiding Judges. Mr Justice Calver has been appointed to the South Eastern Circuit where he will succeed Mr Justice Murray. Mr Justice Wall has been appointed to the Midland Circuit where he will succeed Mrs Justice Tipples. Mrs Justice Stacey has been appointed to Wales where she will succeed Mr Justice Griffiths. The appointments are made from 1 January 2026, when the current Presiding Judges step down, to 31 December 2029...