The Practical Lawyer

It is critical to maintain an approach to criminal justice that is consistent and even-handed, maintaining a definitive position that the death of a defendant brings any criminal prosecution of that defendant to an end. So said Sir Brian Leveson P, giving judgment in the Court of Appeal in a case where the defendant died before the jury gave its verdicts.

Is self-defence capable in law of being invoked as a defence to a charge of dangerous driving? In a somewhat unusual case, A was convicted of making off without payment, and one count of dangerous driving. She had taken a cab ride home and told the driver she would go in to collect the fare, and return within two minutes. She failed to do so, but a few minutes later he spotted her, having changed her clothes and getting into another car.

There was no basis on which to grant an extension of time, the Court of Appeal ruled, in a renewed application for an extension of time of nearly eight years to appeal against a confiscation order.

The mens rea required for a conviction of conveying a prohibited article into a prison under the Prison Act 1952 has been clarified. The offence is not one of strict liability, contrary to what some practitioners wrongly believe.

The appellant appealed his conviction, in his absence, of an offence of conspiracy to supply cannabis contrary to s1 Criminal Law Act 1977. A suffered from chronic heart disease, and the consultant cardiologists all agreed that A could not cope with physical attendance throughout a normal trial.

The latest amendments to the CPR are now in force as of 3 April 2017. The Criminal Procedure (Amendment) Rules 2017 introduce new rules concerning:

The police may arrest and detain individuals to prevent an imminent breach of the peace where there is insufficient time to give a warning, without breaching Article 5 ECHR.

A new judgment broadens the principle of bringing cases only on the basis of matching DNA. The author of this article highlights a common misconception about the status of DNA evidence.

A new offence of sexual communication with a child is now in force under s67 Serious Crime Act 2015 (Commencement No. 6) Regulations 2017 (SI 2017 No. 451).

An offence of cheating the Revenue as a course of conduct spanning nearly nine years was neither unfair nor bad for duplicity, the Court of Appeal has ruled. At a retrial, A (an accountant) was convicted of four counts of cheating the Revenue through a course of conduct over a nine-year period, and sentenced to a total of five years’ imprisonment. He unsuccessfully appealed both his conviction and sentence.