The Defence Brief

Good news, I have found our next Prime Minister! Don't worry though, we don't have to abandon elections just yet, because I have a list of three names for you to chose from all of whom are currently unemployed and thus can start tomorrow. First, is Giles Fraser.  He has been in the news recently as he resigned as Canon Chancellor of St Paul's Cathedral.  He is against violence and so when he become concerned that evicting the protesters from the church yard would end in violence he chose to have no part in it and resigned!  MPs in general take note, this is integrity. Second up is Fraser Dyer, a Chaplin at St Paul's who resigned because he felt "embarrassed by the position taken by the Dean and Chapter" of the cathedral.  In other words, his bosses made a decision that he could not support on principle so he refused to support it and resigned his post.  Nick Clegg, Vince Cable & other Liberal MPs take note this is called sticking to your principles a...

The BBC are on a mission this week to discuss criminal offences that are dealt with by being taking into consideration, there are articles on their website, it's being discussed on the Today programme and I will be discussing it on Radio 4's Law in Action at 4pm on the 1st and 3rd November 2011 - well I might be if I was interest enough during the interview.  Taking an offence into consideration is the process whereby a guilty defendant can admit to crimes for which they have not been charged on the understanding that they will not be prosecuted in future for that offence.  This helps the police as each offence TiC'd counts as a bona fide detection and thus boosts forces detection rates. It is not a well understood process, even by lawyers, and many make the mistake of thinking that once you TiC a crime you are safe from prosecution because you can rely on the special plea of autrefois convict - literally instead of pleading guilty or not guilty you enter a preemptive ple...