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...
Government Unveils New Domestic Abuse Legislation On Monday the government unveiled its new strategy to tackle domestic abuse. This follows a consultation exercise carried out last year which drew over 3,000 responses. The new measures are: Introducing the first ever statutory government definition of domestic abuse, which...
Community Protection Notices Community Protection Notices (CPNs) are currently attracting a lot of attention from the legal community, and we have many concerns concerning the way in which they are presently being used. In a recent case (Stannard v The Crown Prosecution Service [2019] EWHC 84 (Admin))...
Voyeurism and 'Upskirting' - Government Acts to Strengthen Law The Voyeurism (Offences) (No 2) Bill completed its parliamentary journey on 15th January 2019 and will shortly receive Royal Assent. As the Act will create new criminal offences, the usual convention is that at least two months...
End of The Road for Short Prison Sentences? The big news story of the weekend was the surprising news that the Prison's Minister is considering whether to abolish the power to impose short prison sentences, those of 6 months or less. Arguing for the need for reform,...
Psychoactive Substances New legislation was introduced in 2016 banning the production, sale, distribution and supply of psychoactive substances. Within that legislation was a requirement for the Government to review the law to measure any changes in outcomes before and after the law was introduced, to see...
Enquiry Details: Feedback for Karen - thank you for your help your reputation is clearly deserved and without you I couldn’t have found an appropriate course of action so quickly. Thanks for all your help. December 21, 2018 6:33 pm...
Computer hacking Hacking has been in the news a great deal in the last couple of years, for example, the 2016 US Presidential Elections, the extradition cases of Gary McKinnon and Lauri Love in which I acted and the hacking of user accounts of various large...
Alexa – Witness for the Prosecution? On 29th January 2017, Christine Sullivan and her housemate were found murdered in Farmington, New Hampshire, USA. Their bodies were discovered by the house owner, Dean Smoronk, who was Sullivan’s boyfriend. Timothy Verrill, an associate of Smornok, was later charged with...
Can I get a suspended prison sentence? A suspended sentence is a term of imprisonment that is suspended so that you do not go into custody immediately and will not go into custody if you comply with the conditions attached. Who can get a suspended sentence? In the...