The Defence Brief

At the time of the expenses scandal, I watched a rather odious performance by Jim Devine on the Channel 4 news where he made some rather absurd claims about the nature of his expenses, which to my ears sounded like an admission of guilt to a number of offences. He has today been gaoled for 16-months by HHJ Saunders at the Old Bailey.  Considering this was a case involving a gross breach of trust and the creation of forged documents (which takes the offence beyond simply making a false claim) I think he should be pretty pleased with the sentence.

If you run a business or conduct business in England and Wales then I hope you are ready because the new Bribery Act will come into force on the 1st July 2011 and it will affect you. It will create a handful of new offences; but while the offences may be few they will be wide ranging and very powerful carrying sentences of up to 10 years imprisonment. You may find yourself criminalised for what you currently consider trivial or even normal and good business practice.  One of the main problem areas will be where to draw the line between business entertainment and bribery.  A few weeks ago, a barristers clerk took me out for lunch, drinks and dinner (I think I paid for dinner but it's all a bit hazy by that point).  We ended up in a casino and he paid for my gambling.  Obviously, he was looking to promote his Chambers to me and get me to send work their way.  Now depending on your views, this could be normal entertainment or it could amount to bribery under th...

While generally it is true to say that solicitors are incapable of ever being wrong, I do have to question this solicitors take on a case that went against him. A conditional fee arrangement allows a solicitor to charge more than his usual fee if he wins a case and not to charge at all if he doesn't win; they are better known as "no win, no fee" cases. The Courts and Legal Services Act 1990 sets out very clearly what is required to make a valid CFA.  Section 58(3)(a) says, "It must be in writing".  I don't provide CFAs (because s. 58 of the CLSA bars their use in criminal cases); however, it took me less than 2 minutes to work out that the arrangement described in that article is invalid and to find the law that states it to be invalid... so I am surprised that a solicitor with 32-years experience would find the judge's ruling to be "absurd".  I can only assume that he has been mis-quoted.

The Sentencing Council has published new guidelines for dealing with assault cases in Magistrates' Courts.  The new guidelines are much more comphrensive than the old ones.  Broadly speaking, offences are split into three levels indicating the seriousness of injuries suffered and the culpability of the offender.  The court must then consider any aggravating or mitigating factors before selecting an appropriate starting point for sentence.  The court then must go through various steps that increase or decrease the sentence before arriving at a decision. Will this increase sentences?  Er... no. Let us look at assault with intent to resist arrest.  Under the old guidelines there were three levels of seriousness and the starting points went: Low level community order; High level community order; and  Crown Court (which means that the case is too serious for the magistrates to sentence because the sentence exceeds their maximum 6-month imprisonment p...

A few years ago the Met police spent a fortune upgrading the computer systems in all its custody suites... I say upgrading but what I really mean is introducing computers since they didn't seem to have any at all before. I don't know what has happened - and nor it seems do the police engineers - but I understand that all of the custody suite computers have been out of action (certainly at every custody suite anyone at my firm has attended) for the last week.  This is a big problem as most of the stations cannot tell who is due to answer bail to them and when they are due, which really means if you don't bother showing up then the police may not realise! These computers are all very clever but this wouldn't have happened under the old pen and paper system... then again maybe I'm just getting old; my first interview at the police station was a all day handwritten record of interview job!

Before a suspect is interviewed the police will usually disclose the basic facts of a case to the suspect's solicitor, which is one of the best reasons for having a solicitor by the way! There are rumours flying about that the CPS are refusing to authorise charges of suspects because of budget constraints - I most recently heard this the weekend before last at a party from a Met police officer and again last Friday from a BTP police officer at a Chas and Dave concert (I have high musical tastes!) Consider this piece of disclosure in a theft case, "LBH have produced CCTV evidence which shows the offence... The defendant is currently on bail for two like offences... [and] has 14 previous convictions for theft offences..."  The disclosure also makes the point that a CCTV operator witnessed the offence as it happened, which is how the police came to be called. I cannot comment about whether the CPS are deliberately refusing to charge, but in this case the CPS refused to...

In January I dealt with a 17-year-old girl who had been arrested for something she hadn't done but then proceeded to write her name several times on the cell walls in pencil.  Her mother attended, told her off and offered to make her rub off the pencil marks.  The original reason for her arrest was dropped by the police but she was charged with criminal damage as the Youth Offending Team (YOT) would not authorise a reprimand. In December 2010, a colleague asked the YOT to review this again with a view to giving a warning or reprimand as it seemed like over-kill to give somebody who had never been in contact with the police let alone the courts a criminal record for such a minor offence. Unfortunately, the YOT didn't seem to want to do anything.  So, when I went back in January it was adjourned again to give them some more time.  I've just looked at the file.  It was finally resolved at the end of February after five adjournments for the YOT to make a decisio...

The sharp-eyed among you may have noticed the deliberate Americanisation of the word "defence" in the title.  That's because I wanted to share this interesting and amusing piece called The Truth About Hiring a Criminal Defense Lawyer , which was written by an American lawyer called Brian Tannebaum. I don't agree with every word, but for the most part I think it's spot on.   I just wish that UK lawyers could charge such huge fees for our work (minimum of $5,000 for a guilty plea drink driving case over there, while today I represented an Ambasador's wife for assault and was paid less than £500 for her guilty plea)... oh well, I can dream.

I stumbled onto a copy of "Working with women prisoners" on the Prison Service website while looking for a copy of the Prison Rules. One of the most remarkable things that stood out in the document for me is the table of who is looking after the women prisoners' children while they are in prison. Just 9% are cared for by their fathers; while 8% are in care.  A relatively massive 24% go to grandparents and 17% to a "female relative".  So, almost twice as many children are cared for by a general female relative as opposed to by their dad. From my own experience, it is far more common for me to deal with a youth who has little or no contact with his dad than it is to deal with one who has regular contact with daddy.  I've also dealt with a few who have no contact with their mums and they are often the most screwed up kids of the lot. I was never a fan of the old Tory governments witch hunts against single mothers, but I do think that a lack of family co...

For reasons that do not matter I have had to make a crime report to Northamptonshire Police.  Now, my office is nowhere Northants so I thought I'd visit the website for help.  I know on other police sites reporting crime is easy. With Northants, I can easily make a complaint about a police officer - that's on the front page.  I can easily access their pages on various social networks - there's a huge ad for those on the front page.  I can also find out all sorts of interesting things like what the police helicopter has been up to, where the mobile speed cameras are going to be through the month (which seems to defeat the point of them) and I can find out what the police do; I had assumed I knew, but apparently I need to watch the "Force video", read the "Mission Statement" and research the "Command Structure" to fully understand what the police do. Nowhere on the front page can I see how I might report a sodding crime!!!  I checked "Co...

I've just come across this story about plans to cut police pay . It seems to me that the Government needs to think about what is important to the people and therefore what is important to it. If I am in dire fiscal straits then I must consider whether I pay off my bills in any particular order.  I could pay all my credit cards and over draft off first while ignoring my mortgage.  The end result might be that I end up with no debt quickly because my personal debts are covered and the bank takes my house away to pay off the mortgage I owe them.  But, the problem is that I am now homeless.  A better solution seems to be to decide what is important to me.  Maybe it is better that I pay my debts slowly but have somewhere to live at the end of it. This is the same problem as the Government faces.  Does it slash all public spending to the bone, pay all the debts but risk leaving the country in an appalling state at the end of it?  Or does it have a real...