The Defence Brief

This seemed appropriate When I was training, I was taught that solicitors and barristers should be highly professional, doing their best for their client no matter what – especially if the clients’ interests conflicted with the lawyers’ personal interests. What I see in practise from those undertaking legal aid work almost always conforms to those high principles.  Sadly, the more I hear about lawyers undertaking privately financed work – i.e. criminal law work paid for by the client rather than legal aid – is falling short of those principles far too often. Today I spoke to a client who has a drink driving case.  He contacted me and another solicitor for representation.  Neither of us has seen the prosecution evidence since it has not been served yet.  I have my note of our original conversation in front of me, I advised him on possible defences, special reasons and the likely sentence if convicted or if he chose to plead guilty.  After hearing...

People often call me after they've been charged with drink driving to ask for legal advice ... makes sense, I suppose.  The one question I get asked the most (except "how much is this going to cost me?") is "Do I need a solicitor?"  Now, I'm an honest sort of chap so my answer is always "yes"... I mean unless you happen to have the expertise to analyse the prosecution evidence, look for holes in it and devise an appropriate defence or put together a well crafted speech in mitigation that is. A few months ago a lady contacted me looking for some advice and somebody to help her minimise her sentence after she was charged with being drunk in charge of a motor vehicle.  Convinced she had no defence all she wanted to do was plead guilty and take the punishment that was coming her way. When I spoke to her and looked at the evidence I quickly realised that she had been in a private car park that did not fall within the legal definition of either a roa...

Chris Grayling MP, our Lord Chancellor and Minister for Justice has announced that people convicted of crimes in the criminal courts (i.e. criminals) will be made to pay £600 each towards the cost of prosecuting them. It’s a policy designed to garner headlines and popularity in the right wing press (leadership bid in the future I wonder) rather than one actually intended to bring in any money… at least I hope that’s what it is otherwise Mr Grayling really is as badly informed about the Criminal Justice System as everybody says. The policy is wrong for two main reasons.  First, if you believe that criminals should pay the costs of bringing the case against them then why not charge them the actual costs of doing that rather than an arbitrary £600?  A simple shoplifting may well cost less to bring to court whereas a fraud could cost thousands of times that £600 figure.  So, from an ideological stand point it makes no sense. At this point it’s worth declaring my ...

This has nothing to do with the post but I thought it was funny From the National Office of Importance I represented a defendant today who was accused of being drunk in charge of a motor vehicle, which is essentially an offence the police can charge where they cannot prove that somebody has driven or is about to drive. The scope of the offence is very wide, essentially you are guilty if you are a) over the drink driving limit; and b) in charge of a motor vehicle.  So, in theory if you have a few drinkies at home and your car is parked outside you could be guilty of a drink driving offence.  Obviously this would be both silly and unjust, so there is a defence built into the statute that you are not guilty if there is no likelihood of you driving the vehicle while over the drink driving limit. In today’s case, this defence was wide open to my client.  I won’t bore you with the full details but essentially the client states that he was out drinking with his gi...

Viscount Rothermere (then owner of Daily Mail and Daily Mirror) meets Adolf Hitler The past few weeks have been mildly interesting if you like reading about human rights and why we shouldn’t have them.  The idea of people arguing that they shouldn’t be entitled to human rights always reminds me of a friend of mine who hates the idea of consumer rights, not because he runs a business but on principle; not that he lets it stop him exercising his consumer rights when it suits him. My friend also hates human rights.  He doesn’t dislike them or disagree with them, he hates them.  Like many people who despise the notion of human rights he is also passionately anti-Europe (although unlike most people he understands that the European Union has nothing to do with the European Convention on Human Rights).  Also like most people who hate human rights, my friend can’t say which of the individual rights he would like done away with (and he does know them all bei...

Ken Clarke - author of the Deregulation Bill The Government has released the text of the Deregulation Bill , which seeks to simplify regulation across a wide range of industries and professions – everything from driving instructors to sellers of knitting yarn to insolvency practitioners.   Hidden away at section 51 of the Bill is a provision allowing a Minister of the Crown to order that “legislation shall cease to apply if the Minister considers that it is no longer of practical use.” I suspect that this is probably the most significant power a Minister has ever sought to take for himself in British history. Currently, if the Government wish to dis-apply a piece of legislation they must pass an Act of Parliament that abolishes the previous law.   This is because Parliament is the supreme law maker so if Parliament makes a law then only Parliament can unmake that law. As the anti-Europe brigade in the Conservative party regularly reminds us their problem wi...

Following on from my earlier post on the Government’s plans to bring in new rights for victims I thought it might be worth saying something more about the final promise David Cameron made to victims, namely that there would be “more protection for witnesses”. Since Dave wants to offer more protection for witnesses, I thought it would be interesting to think about what protections already exist and then compare those to what Mr Cameron is offering.  However, we can’t do that since Dave hasn’t offered any firm proposals beyond the vague “more protection for witnesses” promise.  So, we’ll just have to see what currently exists. Current special measures A special measure is something that the court can use or do to ensure that a witness provides the best evidence possible.  They apply equally to prosecution and defence witness, although they do not apply at all to the defendant himself.  A witness can avail him or herself of a special measure if they are und...