Month: June 2022

The Economic Crime (Transparency and Enforcement) Act was recently brought into effect very quickly.  The haste with which this went through Parliament was due to the Russian invasion of Ukraine and the massive concern about the origins of funds held by wealthy Russian oligarchs in this country.  There have been calls for a crackdown on […]

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New Criminal Justice Initiatives. It has been a busy week for new policy announcements, with these coming from the Ministry of Justice in the last few days. Prison leavers tagged to cut alcohol-fuelled crime Prison leavers will be ordered to wear a sobriety tag, which monitors alcohol levels in sweat, if their probation officer thinks they […]

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Corporate Criminal Liability. The general rule for attributing liability to companies in English and Welsh criminal law is the ‘identification principle’. This states that where a particular mental state is required, only the acts of a senior person representing the company’s “controlling mind and will” can be attributed to the company. In practice, this is […]

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New airport-style security in prisons sees record level of drug seizures. Over the last two years, over 70 X-ray body scanners have been installed in all closed male prisons, producing high-quality images of concealed contraband so that prison officers can easily find and stop dangerous items from entering jails. These scanners have prevented over 19000 attempts […]

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Causing Death by Dangerous Driving. The offence of causing death by dangerous driving currently carries a maximum prison sentence of 14 years. In a recent case (Hughes [2022] EWCA Crim 538) the sentencing judge adopted a starting point of 14 years (the maximum) before discounting it for a guilty plea. During the Crown’s opening, when reference […]

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