News
AGFS Proposal Details
The CBA membership is voting on whether to accept the Government's proposed amendments to the AGFS. The offer is an increase of £15m – equivalent to a c.6.6% increase.
The MoJ has agreed to consider the proposals below but ultimately, they will be subject to all the usual public safeguards for making legislation and the results of a consultation to be undertaken by the MoJ.
CPS Sexual Offences Disclosure Review
The Crown Prosecution Service (CPS) has today (5 June) published the outcome of its review of rape and serious sexual offences (RASSO) cases. In January the CPS announced its senior prosecutors were assessing all cases in England and Wales in which someone had been charged with rape or serious sexual assault. More than 3,600 cases were looked at to ensure that disclosure was being managed effectively.
47 prosecutions for rape or serious sexual offences which were stopped in that period were found to have issues with the disclosure of unused material. Common themes identified included communications evidence such as texts, emails and social media being examined too late in the process, the failure to identify and obtain material such as medical or social services records and the emergence of new evidence after charge.
New Sentencing Guidelines for Breach Offences
The Sentencing Council has published a definitive guideline on breach offences, which will come into effect on 1 October 2018.
This covers the following offences:
- Breach of a community order
- Breach of a suspended sentence order
- Breach of post-sentence supervision
- Failure to surrender to bail
- Breach of a protective order (Restraining and non-molestation orders)
- Breach of a criminal behaviour order (also applicable to breach of an anti-social behaviour order)
- Breach of of a sexual harm prevention order (also applicable to breach of a sexual offences prevention order and to breach of a foreign travel order)
- Fail to comply with notification requirements
- Breach of disqualification from acting as a director
- Breach of disqualification from keeping an animal
Drink-Awareness Courses
First-time offenders involved in minor scraps while drunk will be offered behavioural courses instead of standing trial under a new police scheme.
The courses are billed as similar to speed-awareness sessions offered to drivers stopped for traffic offences.
Officers will have discretionary powers to offer the course to first-time offenders arrested for offences such as being drunk and disorderly in public. Those who attend will pay £46.50 but avoid conviction and a potential fine or prison sentence, and the incident will not show on criminal-record checks for employment or appointments.
Drug Sentencing Assessment
The Sentencing Council has published its assessments of the impact of its drug offences guideline on sentencing trends, under its statutory duty to monitor the operation and effect of its sentencing guidelines and to draw conclusions from this information.
Law Commission Consulting on Search Warrants
The laws around search warrants should be modernised with more protections put in place to protect individuals’ rights, say the Law Commission.
As a result, the independent legal experts have published proposals to modernise the powers available to authorities under search warrants and bring in extra protections for the public.
Cases
Dougall v Crown Prosecution Service [2018] EWHC 1367 (Admin)
Those plain words stipulate that a magistrates' court may not try an information alleging a summary offence unless the information on which the prosecution is founded was laid within the statutory time limit. That is so, whether the information initially charges the summary offence or initially charges an indictable offence but is later amended to charge a summary offence. If no information is laid within the period of six months, but an indictable offence is later charged and then subsequently amended to charge a summary offence, that amendment does not avoid the consequence of the statutory time limit.
Therefore, if:
1) An information charging an indictable offence was laid more than 6 months from the commission of the offence;
2) The prosecution then seek to amend the charge to allege a summary only matter;
3) In those circumstances, a summary only offence could not have been originally charged (as time barred) and therefore an amendment laying a summary only offence cannot be made.
Other
What’s Happening In Justice: A View From England & Wales
Sir Ernest Ryder gave a speech on 14 May 2018 at the UCL conference – The Future of Justice. It references other speeches in a series addressing reform in the context of austerity, the rule of law, access to justice and open justice.