The Defence Brief

Tramadol tablets Big news in the UK today is the case of Laura Plummer, a 33 year old British woman who managed to “accidentally” plead guilty to importing Tramadol painkiller tablets into Egypt in a bizarre misunderstanding on Christmas Day. She has now been sentenced to three years imprisonment by the court. In Egypt it seems that the possession and importation of Tramadol is banned without a special prescription because it is widely abused in that country. Ms Plummer has said that she did not know the medication was illegal in Egypt and had taken it into the country for her Egyptian boyfriend, Omar Caboo, who is also 33 years old. According to the news reports I’ve read of Ms Plummer’s account and those given by her family to explain her actions, Ms Plummer obtained the drugs from a friend here in the UK. It is unclear whether that friend was in possession of a prescription nor, if they were, how it came to be that they built up such an extensive stockpile if they genuinely...

In the past few days there was a spate of attacks committed in a small area of east London, presumably by the same people, over a period of around 90 minutes in which acid was thrown in the faces of moped riders who were then robbed of their vehicles. The use of acid seems to have become more common recently, although whether that is because there are more acid attacks or because they are more widely reported I don’t know. What I do know is that 10 years ago my old firm dealt with a case in which a teenage girl was gang raped over a number of days then disfigured by having caustic soda poured over her face and body. While I think it is more strictly an alkaline, lime was used centuries ago to blind attackers by pouring it on them from the battlements above. Whether acid attacks are truly new or not, the recent London attacks has led to calls for a ban of the sale of acids to the public and regulation as to who may possess them. MP Stephen Timms tweeted that carrying acid ...

Drug pusher Back in June 2015, I wrote about the proposed ban on psychoactive drugs and, being the pessimistic old fart I am, I predicted it would be a dogs dinner if it were ever introduced. I must report that I was wrong. The Act is not a dogs dinner – feeding your dog on food as badly contaminated as the Psychoactive Substances Act 2016 would probably kill it. It gets off to a bad start for me with section 1, “Overview”. This section literally tells you what the other sections say – it’s pointless and reads like the sort introduction a 14 year old might put at the start of an essay. Section 2 weirdly defines the meaning of psychoactive substance, useful but this sort of thing used to go in the interpretation section of an act – in fact it does also appear in the interpretation section with a reference that we should go back to section 2. Oh well, I’m just being fussy now – let’s look at what a psychoactive substance is rather than criticise layout. ...

Psychoactive drugs "Drugs are bad, M'kay" so says South Park Elementary school counsellor Mr Mackey.  Clearly, the Home Secretary agrees and has proudly proclaimed that she has banned over 500 drugs in the past 5-years. I imagine that making all those orders to ban drugs must get quite tedious, which is why Mrs May has come up with the ingenious solution of banning all psychoactive drugs.  The point of this is to prevent people taking legal highs, which are often made by untrained people, working in unsafe environments and using questionable ingredients.  Quite how that doesn't already breach some health and safety law is beyond me, but apparently it doesn't because the government wants to stop people taking them. As a lawyer, there are two questions I think are important.  First, what is a legal high?  Secondly, what is a psychoactive drug? To answer the first question, I asked Frank who told me that "'[l]egal highs' ... contain on...

Smoking heroin I was in court today for a duty session.  I represented a man with a long history of drug abuse and offending.  He had taken a ten-year break from crime and drugs, partly because he spent four-years in prison and partly because he met a woman, married and had kids.  A family breakdown has led him back to heroin. In the past year he’s committed a couple of minor thefts and been found in possession of heroin, which is why I represented him today. He agreed he needed help to kick the drugs and wanted me to apply for a pre-sentence report aimed at a community order with a drug rehabilitation requirement attached. His instructions and the recent offending indicate an escalation in offending meaning it’s very likely that without support he will find himself back before the court having committed further offences. Ultimately, my application for a PSR was refused on the basis that the offence was not sufficiently serious to warrant a punishm...

The Government recently released its Strategic Framework for Road Safety , which looks at the causes of serious road accidents, identifies areas that need to be developed and introduces some sensible and not so sensible plans for driving offences. Fixed penalty notices The most talked about plan is the continuation of Tony Blair's policy of excluding the courts from the Criminal Justice System through the use of fixed penalty notices and effectively turning police officers into road-side prosecutors, judges and juries. The latest batch of fixed penalty notices will allow police officers to punish careless drivers with an on the spot fine.  The Framework gives two reasons for this change.  First: "... to make it more efficient and less time consuming for police to enforce." Sorry to any officers reading this, but if we render that sentence into plain English, it would appear that the Government are suggesting you are all too lazy to take cases to court.  The second ...

Last night I caught half off InsideOut, a TV show on the BBC (I think) that was discussing whether drug addicts should be offered cash in return for agreeing to be sterilised and thus never having children.  Also, on the show was one of Margaret Thatcher's former advisers who said that he advised Maggie to bring in a system of compulsory sterilisation that would form a sentence of the courts. I'm talking purely now about the offer to pay rather then the forced sterilisation, which the Daily Mail would have a fit over if it was happening in any Arab country. I honestly don't know how I feel about this suggestion.  On the one hand, I find the idea of twisting the arms of the desperate and often mentally incapable (due to their drug use) quite unpalatable.  On the other had, I've had dealings with drug dependant mothers and fathers whose children live the most miserable lives that the authorities seem unable to improve.  One girl I came across is regularly in co...