Mental Health and Criminal Law Mental Health is a complicated business. Conditions are not easy to diagnose, doctors can disagree on which disorder a person is suffering from, or even if they have a mental health condition at all. Those with mental disorders might have a host...
Government Tightens Terrorism Laws The Manchester Arena bombing, the London Bridge attack, Shamima Begum. These are some examples of terrorism headlines in the past few years. The Counter-Terrorism and Border Security Act 2019 is the Government’s latest answer to curbing and punishing terrorist activity. The Act creates...
Appeals from Beyond the Grave The Court of Appeal has handed down judgment in the case of R v Max Clifford, the disgraced celebrity PR guru who was convicted in 2014 of a number of sexual offences and sentenced to 8 years imprisonment. Clifford died in 2017,...
Parliamentary Crime There have been two entirely different crime stories in the news this week, but both will challenge the court to consider sentencing guidelines and how they ought to be applied. Conservative MP Christopher Davies admitted two charges concerning expenses fraud. The sum of money concerned...
Facilitating Tax Evasion HMRC is reported to be investigating alleged violations of a new criminal offence, part of the crackdown on money laundering, for the first time. A freedom of information request made by law firm Greenberg Taurig revealed there are five current criminal investigations. The Criminal Finances...
Civil Contingencies Act, Martial Law and a State of Emergency The Civil Contingencies Act 2004 confers a power to make regulations if an ‘emergency’ has occurred or is about to occur. In other words, a power to declare a state of emergency and make regulations to...
Knife Crime - Searching for Solutions The Home Secretary will this week hold an urgent meeting with police chiefs to discuss the recent rise in knife crime. This follows another week of senseless killings and the publication of figures that show the number of people aged...
Counterfeit Currency - You May Pay a Very High Price In straitened financial circumstances, it can be tempting to consider purchasing counterfeit money. While the price of such 'currency' fluctuates widely, it is often as low as 25% of the face value, making it a tempting...
Modern Slavery – A Defence to Drug Dealing and other offences? The short answer is: maybe. Section 45 of the Modern Slavery Act 2015 provides a defence to specific criminal charges where it is shown that they were committed under a compulsion due to slavery or exploitation...
Sleepwalking – Is It A Defence? You wake up one morning and the horror of the night before quickly unfolds. Blue lights and uniformed police officers greet you, search your house and find your girlfriend dead in the bathroom. You have no memory of anything happening overnight, and...