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It's always interesting to see how readers have come across this blog.  One chap has found me using the words "piss brif".  I'm not sure what he was looking for (maybe a lawyer to defend a gross indecency charge?) but I hope he found something worth reading.

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Is there twice as much violent crime in the UK versus the USA?

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The tweet from Charlie Kirk I came across a screenshot of a Twitter post while on Facebook this morning. The original post now has 11,000 retweets and 23,000 likes on Twitter. As you can see from the picture somebody called Charlie Kirk, who is a right-wing American commentator, claims that there are 933 violent crimes in the UK per 100,000 people. This is more than double the rate he claims for the USA where he says there are only 399 violent crimes per 100,000 people. The UK doesn’t feel that violent to me, so is it true? We’re all gonna die According to the FBI, in 2016 there were 1,248,185 violent crimes committed across the whole of the USA. That is an increase of 4.1% on the 2015 figure but still represented only 386.3 violent crimes per 100,000 people . So, Mr Kirk appears to be slightly overestimating the violent crime in the USA. I should say that I am using the 2016 figures as those are the latest available on the FBI website, so maybe he has slightly differe...
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Cash forfeiture and the meaning of draconian

I was due to represent a client in a cash forfeiture hearing this week, although it has been called off at the last minute.   But, I thought I’d take the opportunity to say a few words about these proceedings. The point of the various financial seizure/forfeiture/confiscation orders is for the authorities to deprive criminals of cash found in their possession.   There are a few ways this can be done.   Confiscation proceedings follow a conviction for certain offences, such as drug dealing, money laundering, etc.   Put very simply, in confiscation proceedings the prosecution must show that a) the convicted criminal has benefited from crime to a value of X; and b) that he has realisable assets (in other words has cash or can sell goods) to the value of Y.   The court will then make an order that the defendant owes X but that he must pay Y wherever X is greater than or equal to Y.   Obviously if he can pay the total benefit figure (X) then he must pay that...
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Are items referred to in s.9’s as exhibits bound to be served?

  Background - CPS served a witness statement on me that exhibited two BWV clips that are potentially relevant to the Crown’s case and may have some relevance to the defence case insofar as they are likely to show the lighting and weather at the time events happened. Somebody has listed the clips as unused material rather than putting them in the exhibits folder that accompanies the served evidence. This raised an interesting (to me anyway) question about whether a party who exhibits an item in a statement is bound to serve it on their opponent. At court the judge took the view that the Crown were at liberty to classify items exhibited in s9s as unused material if they chose not to rely upon them in evidence. I took the view that if they are exhibited then they must be served along with the witness statement that exhibits the item and that the solution to a situation where the Crown say they are now unused is to edit the witness statement to remove the reference, by agreement with ...
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