The Defence Brief

Does the law protect police drivers from prosecution?   The Metropolitan Police – that’s the one’s in London if you didn’t know – have released a video showing their officers using police cars to ram moped and motorcycle riders from their bikes. Watching the video with no context you could be forgiven for concluding that these are unreasonably heavy handed tactics that put lives at risk; however, police officers who I trust to know about these things have told me that these tactics are only used to end protracted chases where members of the public are put at risk and to catch the most dangerous offenders. The police conduct risk assessments as events are unfolding both by officers involved in the pursuit and by senior officers back at the police station monitoring events. This post is not about whether those tactics are right or wrong, instead I want to look at the potential legal consequences for police officers taking these actions and what, if anything, the law can...

Blackfriars Crown Court - one of the pilot courts for extended sittings This is a quick update on the blog I posted yesterday about the plan to extend court sitting times from 8am to 8pm in various pilot locations across the country . In that blog, I argued that courts are currently underutilised and that HMCTS should look to resolve that issue before thinking about sitting earlier or later. I have now had a chance to take a snapshot of the Crown Courts across England and Wales today. I have done this in quite a rough and ready way by looking at the lists for each court and counting up the numbers of courts that are either marked as not sitting or that do not appear on the list when they should do if they were sitting today. My findings show that 16.4% of the available courtrooms in Crown Courts across England and Wales are not being used at all today. In addition, there were a significant number where the courts were not sitting before 2pm or where only one case was l...

The Sheffield Palais de Justice Her Majesty’s Courts and Tribunal Service (HMCTS) is trialling extended court opening hours in several courts across the country. The courts will be open 8am til 8pm – some will open from 8am til 6.30pm while others will start later and finish at 8.45pm. I’m not entirely clear what time the late finishing courts will start no doubt because I’m one of the many ill-informed lawyers of whom Lord Justice Fulford spoke. Of course, I might be a little more informed if HMCTS actually told us the plan but there you go. The hope for extending court opening hours is that HMCTS will be able to make better use of the existing court buildings, which is fair enough if there is a shortage of courts available to head cases. But, is there a shortage of courtrooms? Monday last, I attended Thames Magistrates’ Court to act as duty solicitor for courtroom 1. I arrived to find that court 1 had been closed for the day due to a lack of staff to operate it. His...

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 ...

Does electing judges work in the USA? Last week the Divisional Court gave judgment in the case of R (Miller) -V- Secretary of State for Exiting the European Union , otherwise known as the Brexit Case. The decision of the court was that the law requires Parliament to trigger the notification of the UK’s intention to leave the EU using Article 50. Obviously, those who campaigned on the basis that we should leave the EU to hand sovereignty back to the UK Parliament are most upset about the decision of the court that it is for the UK Parliament to make important decisions like this one. Many of the same people who are super keen on Brexit and who either don’t understand or choose to ignore what the case was about and what the court said have been up in arms about it calling for changes to how judges are appointed. In particular Daniel Hannan, Conservative MEP, who confusingly seemed to call for elected judges but then told me on Twitter he was in favour of “open confirmation h...

Not actual footage of [CENSORED] or [CENSORED] The hot legal news story of the past week has been the super injunction granted to [CENSORED] who is the spouse of [CENSORED], a world famous person in the entertainment industry.  The injunction revolves around claims that [CENSORED] cheated on [CENSORED] by having a threesome with two other people, one of whom is a “businessman” who would like to make a lot of money from his relationship with [CENSORED] by stabbing [CENSORED] in the back.  Presumably so he can retire early.  I don’t know, I’m just guessing here. Understandably the newspapers want to print all the steamy news about how [CENSORED] did this, did that or did the other to his two threesome companions, all behind the back of [CENSORED] and then went on to have an affair some months later.  Meanwhile, for equally understandable reasons both [CENSORED] and [CENSORED] would like to keep the story a secret. I have to admit that I haven’t though...