Gross negligence manslaughter – an offence in flux
After a period of relative stability following the seminal judgment of the House of Lords in Adomako [1995] AC 171, gross negligence manslaughter has been considered by the Court of...
Weekly Digest: 30 January 2018
This week’s digest considers two Supreme Court cases and a decision of the Divisional Court. The Supreme Court, in the first case, considered the extent to which a court can...
Householder self-defence: an issue with continuous incidents?
At a recent trial, the Crown Court had to consider whether the householder amendment to self-defence applied to all force used in a violent incident that began inside a home...
Weekly Digest: 22 January 2018
This week’s Digest discusses two recent Court of Appeal judgments. The first relates to the admissibility of evidence of a defendant’s bad character under the provisions of s. 101 of...
No smoke without fire: revisiting the Crown exemption rule
When is the Crown bound by a statute that does not expressly refer to it? This was the question that arose for consideration by the Supreme Court in R (on...
Weekly Digest: 15 January 2018
In this week’s Digest, we consider three Court of Appeal judgments handed down in recent months on topics including whether a sentence that did not take into account the time...
Failing to prevent the facilitation of tax evasion: note on Government’s guidance
The Criminal Finances Act 2017 introduced two new offences (the first relating to the UK and the other to a foreign jurisdiction), each committed where a relevant body (those most...
Weekly Digest: 8 January 2018
In this, the first Weekly Digest of 2018, the Court of Appeal considered the relevance of mental disorders to the defence of loss of control; and allowed an appeal against...
Disclosure: time to cut the Gordian knot?
Non-disclosure in criminal proceedings has long been recognised as a “potent source of injustice” (per Glidewell J in R v Ward [1993] 1 WLR 619, the successful appeal against convictions...