The Defence Brief

I seem to be constantly departing from my main aim of talking about motoring law on the rare occasions I manage to write a blog but today the Times today ran an appalling story(£££) that serves only to sensationalise the public’s perception of how rape and sexual assault trials are conducted and can do nothing but put victims in fear of going to the police following an attack. They also included reference to the Ched Evans proving that once accused you can never escape these allegations even after acquittal - here's what I had to say about Evans case at the time . According to the Times a study of 550 trials conducted over a two-year period found questions about a complainants sexual past were put in three-quarters of cases, which seems to suggest that the rules preventing this are being improperly circumvented. The Times goes on to assert that 44% of complainants were only told that they would face such questions after the trial had begun. Sadly, not a single one of t...

Wayne Rooney On the 1 st September 2017, Everton and England international footballer Wayne Rooney was stopped by police as he drove his car through Wilmslow, Cheshire in the early hours of the morning. The police said that there was a light out on the car Mr Rooney was driving so they decided to stop it – presumably on the basis that people who have committed more serious offences often commit minor ones like having a light out on their cars. They found Mr Rooney in the driving seat with a lady in the front passenger seat. The police officers asked him to provide a specimen of breath to establish whether he was fit to drive or not. I haven’t seen a report saying why they did this but as section 6 of the Road Traffic Act 1988 only allows a specimen to be required where a constable reasonably suspects that a person has been driving with alcohol or drugs in their system we can assume that something about Mr Rooney made them suspect he was drunk. Typically, police are on...