News Blog
Juries, not Chief Crown Prosecutors, are there to set standards in rape cases
The Evening Standard reports that London’s Chief Crown Prosecutor, Alison Saunders, complains that juries have acquitted rape suspects 36 times in the last two years and that is now the biggest reason for failures in rape prosecutions. Those remarks coming … Continue reading
Raising the Surcharge will not help the victims of crime
It is reported that proposals are afoot to raise fixed penalty speeding fines from £60 to £80 or even £100 and that motorists who elect trial rather than paying the fixed penalty may face a surcharge of up to £120. … Continue reading
The first duty of a government is to protect its own citizens and it should protect Richard O’Dwyer
Richard O’Dwyer is a 23-year-old Sheffield Hallam University student who set up TVShack, a website which United States authorities allege uses links to pirate copyrighted films and television programmes. Today an English District Judge ruled that he may be extradited … Continue reading
Teachers face regulatory nightmare
Some time ago the coalition government announced that the General Teaching Council (GTC) would be abolished in March. It emerged that it was to be replaced by the new Teaching Agency, an executive agency of the Department of Education to … Continue reading
No Immunity For Crimes Committed in Parliament
Where defendants were alleged to have taken advantage of the allowances scheme designed to enable them to perform their important public duties as members of Parliament to commit crimes of dishonesty to which parliamentary immunity or privilege did not, had … Continue reading
Alternative Business Structures to be challenged in ECJ
From October 2011 alternative business structures (ABS) will be permitted in England and Wales. But this major reform faces a challenge before the European Court of Justice because mainland bars suggest, with some force, that this is unethical. The President … Continue reading
Future for OHPA Looks Bleak
Dame Janet Smith recommended in the Shipman Report that the adjudication stage of the Fitness to Practise procedures of the General Medical Council should be undertaken by a body independent of the Council. The new body should appoint and train … Continue reading
Antisocial Behaviour Orders to go
Antisocial behaviour orders (ASBOs), a headline grabbing shoot-from-the-hip policy introduced by the Labour government in a desperate attempt to demonstrate that it could control unruly behaviour, are to be removed. Home Secretary, Theresa May, has indicated that instead police will … Continue reading
Health Professions Council to regulate Social Workers
Health Secretary, Andrew Lansley, has announced that the Health Professions Council is to regulate social workers from April 2012 as part of a shake up of the Department of Health’s arm’s length bodies. The General Social Care Council will be … Continue reading
Remoteness of Misconduct in Regulatory Proceedings
The boundaries of misconduct and how closely it must be linked to the professional’s calling were examined recently by the Court of Appeal in The Queen (on the application of Remedy UK Limited) v The General Medical Council [2010] EWHC … Continue reading