The Defence Brief

Alison Saunders, the Director of Public Prosecutions I wrote recently about the spate of acid attacks and the proposals for dealing with them suggested by some MPs . Today, I want to talk about the comments by the Director of Public Prosecutions, Alison Saunders. Ms Saunders comments appear to show that she is somebody who has no understanding of the role of the CPS or the law itself. Now Ms Saunders is a very experienced prosecutor and lawyer. She has risen to the very top of her organisation and I do not for a minute believe that she does not understand what the CPS does or what the law is regarding acid attacks. According to the Guardian newspaper, Ms Saunders said that there is a strong public interest in her authorising the CPS to give out the strongest punishments to acid attackers. I suspect she didn’t say that exactly since it’s not a direct quote and is most likely badly paraphrased by a journalist. But, it’s worth saying that the CPS do not give out punishmen...

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...

The infamous Brexit bus LBC radio tweeted a report that Lord Sugar, a cross-bench member of the House of Lords, told them that the people behind the infamous Brexit bus claim (and similar claims) should face criminal charged against them. Judging by the response to that tweet a lot of people agree and I’ve seen a number of people, lawyers included, arguing that fraud or misconduct in public office charges should be brought. But, how successful would such a bus-based criminal charge be in practice? First, let’s just remind ourselves of the facts. On the 23 rd June 2016, the UK voted in a referendum on whether it should remain a member of the European Union. In the run up to that vote various arguments were put forward by both sides – a few of the arguments were sensible but an awful lot were fantastical, e.g. David Cameron’s claim that a vote to leave the EU would inevitably lead to World War Three. On the Leave side, the most disputed point that is still being talked about...