The Defence Brief

Aghh Michael Gove's coming... delete, delete, delete Last year three judges were sacked and one resigned after being caught viewing pornography at work. There was no suggestion that this interfered with their judicial office or any cases that they were hearing. It all happened in private in their own offices and appears to have been detected only because the Ministry of Justice audited computer use by employees. It appears that none of this was regular and, in some cases, occurred on just one or two occasions. Two of the men were full time judges while the other two were part-timers, which usually means they are still in practice as lawyers when not sitting as a judge. Staff viewing non-work related websites, including pornography, during work hours is a problem for all employers. When I had employees if I’d sacked everyone who looked at porn once or twice I doubt there would have been anybody left. If I sacked everybody who looked at non-work websites jus...

Revenge porn This is the third time I have returned to the subject of revenge porn (previous posts are here  and here ) and I’d like to make clear from the outset that I am not some sort of pervert worried that his fun is going to be ruined by this new law… okay I’m not just a pervert (that’s a joke by the way). The offence is now on the statue books and is contained within the brand new Criminal Justice and Courts Act 2015, which received Royal Assent last week.  Section 33 makes it a criminal offence: “for a person to disclose a private sexual photograph or film if the disclosure is made— (a)without the consent of an individual who appears in the photograph or film, and (b)with the intention of causing that individual distress.” Note there that the Act is talking about a “disclosure”, not a publication.  So, while it is convenient to think of somebody posting a picture of their ex to the internet this offence could be committed by showing the photog...