Prison is supposed to be hard. It is, after all, a punishment. But it’s also designed to help people address their behaviour and stop them re-offending. When imprisonment leads to more offending, it isn’t working. The specific problems faced by women have been highlighted recently by the Farmer Review for Women. Lord Farmer hopes to…
In February 2019 the Court of Appeal quashed Sally Challen’s conviction for the murder of her husband and ordered a retrial. Last week the prosecution accepted a plea to the lesser offence of manslaughter and Challen received a sentence that meant she would serve no further time in custody. Why was the appeal allowed? Challen…
The government has conducted a review of the process for prisoners to be released on temporary licence (ROTL); the drive behind the changes being the rehabilitation of offenders. Research has shown that working in the community prior to release significantly reduces the likelihood of re-offending, and ex-offenders in employment are up to nine percentage points…
Few people would disagree with the suggestion that sentencing law in England and Wales is a complete mess. The provisions that govern how a defendant is to be sentenced are both complex and disparate and to be found across a significant number of statutes. Why does this matter? Research has shown that thousands of sentencing…
In criminal law, we use two different standards of proof, the most well known is ‘beyond reasonable doubt’ (although these days expressed as ‘so that you are sure’), and the balance of probabilities. The latter standard of proof gets less attention but is nonetheless of critical importance in criminal cases. Whilst we hear the term…
On 16th May 2019 the controversial Offensive Weapons bill received Royal Assent, bringing into law the Offensive Weapons Act 2019. Why was this law passed? This legislation has been passed in order to assist in stemming the current problems in relation to knife crime and other serious offending involving weapons, whether it will be successful…
This perennial question was back in the news following a ministry of justice announcement that further steps would be taken to root out dishonest prison officers and others working in custodial institutions. A new counter-corruption unit will be tasked with ‘proactively [purusing] those suspected of corrupt activity in prison and probation services across England and…
Forensic evidence has dominated some of the news agenda this week, with outrage over the interrogation of complainant’s phones in sexual offence and other cases. In reality of course, if a police officer is to investigate a criminal offence fairly, the interrogation of phones, computers and other devices may well be necessary, despite the potential…
The television drama ‘Line of Duty’ continues to captivate audiences keen to discover the identity of ‘H’ and the top copper involved in organised crime gangs. Central to the plot of this series has been undercover cop John Corbett, who met with an unexpected and grisly end in episode 4. Having been sent in to…
Many people face very lengthy court proceedings, and it is therefore hardly unusual that on occasion a person may not be well enough to attend court. Despite this fact, courts are sceptical of alleged illness and unless the rules are followed in close detail, a non-attendee faces the serious prospect of being arrested by the…
