At 2 pm on Saturday 21 March 2020, a law came into force which forced the closure of some businesses. This law was enacted by virtue of The Health Protection (Coronavirus, Business Closure) (England) Regulations 2020 (and mirror regulations that apply in Wales). The statutory instrument was made in exercise of the powers conferred by…
A defendant has the right to a fair trial within a reasonable time. In exceptional cases, a delay will lead to a stay of proceedings as an abuse of process. A stay of proceedings is an extremely rare outcome, with the Court of Appeal making the following observation in R v PS [2013] EWCA Crim…
The use of intermediaries during criminal trials is becoming increasingly commonplace. An intermediary may be used to assist any witness, including a defendant, give evidence. The functions of an intermediary “Intermediaries are communication specialists (not supporters or expert witnesses) whose role is to facilitate communication between the witness and the court, including the advocates. Intermediaries…
As the UK prepares to move into the ‘delay phase’, changes are expected to criminal justice procedure. So, what might be expected to change? Criminal Investigations In the event of any public disorder, work on low priority criminal investigations may slow or stall entirely as police resources are diverted elsewhere. Most police custody suites hold…
Circumstantial evidence is widely misunderstood, and many people cannot understand how a case can be advanced without primary evidence of wrongdoing. To illustrate this, we can use two examples relating to burglary. Burglary can be committed in quite a few different ways, but the most common allegation is that a person entered a building as…
Many professionals are held by their regulators to a higher standard than other members of the public. Conduct which may fall well short of being criminal in nature may nonetheless excite the interest of a regulator, with the potential for censure. In the most recent case of Diggins v Bar Standards Board [2020] EWHC 467…
The Forensic Science Regulator regulates forensic scientists in England and Wales. The Regulator ensures that the provision of forensic science evidence across the criminal justice system is subject to appropriate standards. The Regulator has recently said that there are gaps in quality that need to be resolved in order to prevent the use of unreliable…
If you ask most people how many people are selected to sit on a jury hearing a criminal case, the answer from most if not all will be 12. It can, therefore, come as something of a surprise to people facing trial at a crown court (and sometimes lawyers not well versed in crown court…
We often get asked how prosecutions can proceed in the absence of cooperation from the victim or chief witness. The starting point is that no prosecution can go ahead unless there is a realistic prospect of conviction, but how the prosecution case is formulated remains a matter for the Crown Prosecution to decide. These are…
A large number of people are subject to notification requirements under Part 2 of the Sexual Offences Act 2003, many for an indeterminate period. The notification framework is often referred to as the ‘sex offender register’, and around 60,000 people are affected (although not all of those are subject to indeterminate notification). Last week several…
