News
Ministers Consider Limiting Six-Month Custodial Sentences
The Ministry of Justice is considering banning prison sentences of less than six months in England and Wales. Ministers argue that short jail terms are less effective at cutting reoffending than community penalties.
The Ministry of Justice is considering preventing courts from imposing prison terms of less than six months unless the sentence is for a violent crime or a sexual offence. Since they took up their posts last year, Justice Secretary David Gauke and Mr Stewart have both made it clear they want to reduce the use of short prison sentences.
Government Response to the Justice Committee’s Report on Criminal Legal Aid
The Government agrees that a wider review of all criminal fee schemes is appropriate. We have also previously signalled a desire to reform LGFS more fundamentally. In both LGFS and AGFS we believe that PPE as a proxy for complexity is outdated and is no longer a useful indicator of “work done”. In part this is because digital developments in recent years can produce large volumes of data, such as computer and mobile phone hard drives, that are fundamentally different from traditional evidence.
We now intend to launch a broad review of all criminal legal aid fee schemes, starting in January 2019. This comprehensive review of criminal legal aid fee schemes would seek to deliver a final report, including any recommendations, towards the end of the Summer in 2020.
QC Appointments
The 108 new appointments as Queen’s Counsel were announced on 10 January 2019. The Silk Ceremony will be held on Monday 11 March 2019.
'Rape defendants must prove they actively sought consent, say top judge and campaigners'
Rape defendants should be forced to prove they actively sought consent for sex from their alleged victims under legal reforms being proposed by a leading judge.
Lord Justice Sir John Gillen, a former appeal court judge in Northern Ireland, has recommended the change as part of a six-month review of the law following the acquittal of two Belfast rugby players last year after a high-profile nine week rape trial.
His recommendations, which have gone out for consultation, relate to Northern Ireland but will have profound implications for UK-wide law.
'Ministry of Justice abandons key plank of £280m IT project'
Her Majesty's Courts and Tribunals Service has halted one of the core workstreams of its £280m Common Platform Programme, putting three years of development work on ice in favour of keeping an "end-of-life legacy system" in use.
In an email seen by The Register, HMCTS Crime Programme Director Gemma Hewison told selected staff that the Crown Prosecution Service's core Case Management System (CMS) would be "reused" instead of being replaced altogether, as planned.
At the time of its launch in 2014, the programme was meant to be complete by March 2019. Ominously, that date has slipped to 2020 and with this latest decision is likely to be even more delayed.
CPS Fee Payment Failures
As many of you will know, the Crown Prosecution Service’s (CPS) system for paying counsel crashed on 20 December 2018. As a result a high volume of invoices were not paid on time to those barristers whose invoices were being processed. We have spoken to the CPS about this incident and have been assured that everything is being done as a matter of urgency to rectify the situation. The CPS has apologised for the system failure.
Given the seriousness of delayed payments for barristers, we have received an assurance from the CPS that a manual process has begun to pay these invoices as quickly as possible. We have been informed that all new invoices dated after 20 December 2018 are being processed as normal.
Cases
Sentencing Remarks in R v Marion Little
Marion Little is a senior and respected employee of the Conservative Party at its Central Headquarters and has been so for many years. She was able to say that she has been a friend to Prime Ministers and other very senior political figures. She has now been convicted, on overwhelming evidence, of two very serious offences of deliberately exceeding the spending limit on the short campaign in South Thanet in 2015, and then creating dishonest documents to hide what she had done.
It appears to me that this is an offence of the utmost gravity in the statutory context and that therefore it is open to me to pass a sentence which is the maximum allowed by Parliament, namely 12 months. Were it otherwise consideration would have to be given to consecutive terms to ensure that the criminality is properly recognised. This was a sustained and deliberate course of conduct and the overspend on the short campaign was very substantial indeed. The sentence on each count will therefore be 9 months imprisonment, suspended for two years.
Other
'Don’t let the Jack Shepherd stories on legal aid distract you from the government’s cynical agenda'
Jack Shepherd is a coward. A pathetic, mewling quisling of a man. He is also a convicted killer, having been found guilty of gross negligence manslaughter. He caused the death of 24 year-old Charlotte Brown by taking her out on the Thames in his defective speedboat – bought, he boasted, to “pull women” – and, fuelled by alcohol, allowing it to be driven at high speed until it fatefully struck a submerged object and capsized.
In a final twist of the knife, as has been reported over the last two days, while on-the-run – presumably abroad – Shepherd has, through his lawyers, applied for permission to appeal against his conviction and sentence. And the Court of Appeal has granted permission, in relation to conviction at least. As Mr Shepherd qualifies for legal aid, which the Court has now granted for the appeal hearing, it means that, in the words of the Daily Mail, Shepherd can “milk taxpayers for cash while on the run”. MPs and tabloids have since lined up to condemn this state of affairs; a fugitive flipping the finger at justice while still benefitting from the largesse of the country whose laws he brazenly flouts.
‘Was my dad a paedophile?’
At least eight men have killed themselves in the UK after being labelled child sex offenders on social media by so-called paedophile hunters, the BBC's Victoria Derbyshire programme has found. One of them was Michael Duff. For the first time, his daughter Lesley explains the enduring trauma of hearing about the claims against her father, via Facebook.
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Crime Fees - Free AGFS Calculator for iOS and Android
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Every permutation of case under the AGFS is catered for - the 3 advocate types, the 19 types of hearing, the 17 offence bands, and the 915 offences.