The Defence Brief

I'm always amused by claims made by other solicitors and concerned when a lot of them don't appear to be quite as honest as they should be. I regularly hear potential clients give me an account of their escapades that discloses a potential defence or special reason for avoiding a driving disqualification.  I'll give them an honest opinion based on the information they've given me only to be told that another solicitor has told them that he or she can guarantee an acquittal.  It doesn't take a genius to work out that anybody who can guarantee an acquittal is selling snake oil, especially when the claim is made without having seen any evidence whatsoever. Success rates are another favourite claim of mine - personally I tell anybody who calls that I don't keep a record of success rates because they are rather meaningless.  If I decide to only take cases I'm likely to win then I can engineer a very high success rate.  Alternatively, I might get to my chosen ...

But it would be nice if we could get the law right If you see me in court and somebody brings up a point of law you may well hear me jokingly ask the judge “not to bring the law into it”.  I don’t mean it (unless the law happens to be against me, in which case I’d much rather it were left out), but there are an increasing number of people who genuinely seem to believe that the actual law has no place in a court of law.  They will happily quote their version of the law but the actual law… well we’ll leave that at the door. I recently conducted a trial at the start of which the prosecutor forcefully informed me that my defence had no basis in law.  I obviously told him that was jolly fascinating and that he should tell somebody who cared.  Next up popped the court legal adviser who told me the same – in suspiciously similar terms to the prosecutor.  I pointed out that my defence was valid at which he scoffed.  I recommended he go and read a particu...

Revenge porn I talked about the proposal to create an offence involving images that are construed to be "revenge porn" back in June .  It's an issue that simply won't die the death it so desperately needs to. In the latest instalment of the campaign for yet more legislation the BBC published a story of one woman's "six-month ordeal" at the hands of her ex-boyfriend . I am sometimes accused (usually by people who don't read the whole thing) of lacking sympathy for victims and not wanting offenders prosecuted, but that's not true.  I do have sympathy for this lady and have no problem with her ex being prosecuted.  What I object to is the knee-jerk reaction to create a new crime for every social problem in the hope that will solve the problem... it won't!  I'll let you into a secret - murder has been illegal for as long as anybody can remember yet people are still murdered... on average someone is killed unlawfully every day !  Makin...

I sometimes find myself despairing at the stupidity of the Criminal Justice System.  It's 5am as I write this and I've just had a client charged with the offence of causing a public nuisance, which is an ancient common law offence of little value in the modern world - I tend to think that when an offence is so rooted in history that nearly all the major developments happened not in this century, nor the one before and only barely in the one before that it may be time to let the offence quietly die.  The earliest case on public nuisance I can easily find that is still relevant dates from 1703 and the current definition of the offence appears to date from sometime prior to 1835! Public nuisance, no matter how ancient, isn't the stupidity that has me up and annoyed when I should be asleep. In this case, the accused was transiting the UK at a major airport.  His flight was delayed and staff found his behaviour sufficiently egregious that they called police after a thr...

Revenge Porn Julian Huppert MP, a Liberal Democrat Member of Parliament, has called for a new law to outlaw “revenge porn”.  Now for those who don’t know, revenge porn is the name given to the publishing online of intimate photographs of an ex-partner for the purposes of taking revenge for some real or imagined offence by the “victim”. Mr Huppert correctly points out that “[l]ives can be ruined, personal relationships destroyed and jobs lost”.  That’s terrible, but it raises a couple of important questions: a) does the harm necessitate yet another criminal offence?  And b) is the criminal law an appropriate tool for dealing with this type of behaviour, i.e. should “revenge porn” be a crime? Over the past 20-years or so, it has become very trendy for Governments in the UK to create new criminal offences – I believe that by the end of the last Labour government they had created more new crimes then every other government before them put together!  As a s...

A real life burglar... no idea why police can't catch them given they all wear stripy tops and carry bags marked "SWAG" Tomorrow I am at a west London Crown Court starting a trial for possessing criminal property, contrary to section 329(1)(c) of the Proceeds of Crime Act 2002.  Let me begin by assuring you that this is a provision that does two things: a) it really pisses me off; and b) it shows why the legislature should not put its faith in the prosecuting authorities only using criminal offences for the purpose the legislature intended. My case is straightforward, prosecution say my guy has a stolen laptop in his possession and that he knew or suspected it to be stolen.  If they are correct then he is guilty, if he bought it honestly then he is not guilty.  Easy. You may be forgiven for thinking that possessing stolen property is an offence called “handling stolen goods”.  If you thought that then you are correct, section 22(1) of the Theft Act 1968 ...

There’s been a lot of talk on the TV, radio and in the press over the past couple of days about the introduction of a new criminaloffence to outlaw the emotional abuse of children.                                                                                  This follows an NSPCC report which shows a surge in emotional abuse and neglect cases .  Because all new laws involving children are now required by the Ministry of Silly Names to have a silly name, this proposed law is called the Cinderella Law.  Presumably because the ugly sisters neglected her and subjected her to regula...