Blog
Rayner my parade! The importance of specialist advice.
Jemma Brimblecombe
4 May 2018
Sexting: “Outcome 21” - a solution or part of the problem?
The increase in young people sexting cannot have escaped the attention of even the most ostrich like parents. The temptation not to think about and deal with these issues is irresistible for many parents. Those parents do so at their peril because data from police forces published in November 2017 shows a surge in children sharing or possessing sexual images of themselves or others - now politely referred to as “Self-Generated Images” – with over 6200 incidents reported last year being an increase of 131% from 2014/2015. Thankfully, an initial analysis shows that the number of children being charged in these cases has more than halved.
12 April 2018
Youth Justice Part Two: Mini sex offenders or just kids?
Following the first blog in our mini-series on youth justice, in which we provided a brief guide to the Rehabilitation of Offenders Act for young people, we address in this blog the issue of whether children are considered mini sex offenders or 'just kids' and what developments may be on the horizon in 2018.
5 April 2018
Tongue splitting, ear removal and branding - the limits of consent as a defence to extreme body modification
Split ‘lizard’ tongues, tattooed eyeballs, genital beading and ear shaping are just a handful of unconventional body modification procedures people undergo in the UK every day. In March 2018, the Court of Appeal found that certain body modification procedures did in fact amount to serious harm and wounding, and that the customer’s consent could not amount to a defence for causing these ‘injuries’. In light of this, practitioners currently carrying out these procedures may need to revaluate their practises.
29 March 2018
Youth Justice Part One: Criminalising kids - a guide to the Rehabilitation of Offenders Act for young people
In this first blog in a mini-series on youth justice, we provide a a brief guide to the Rehabilitation of Offenders Act for young people. This includes addressing the issues of how long criminal records need to be disclosed for and the impact on applying for employment or further education, filtering rules for criminal records certificates and recent developments.
8 November 2017
Criminalising Children
Last week Sir James Munby called for the CPS to review its charging policy for children to divert them away from the criminal courts. Speaking at a lecture held by the Howard League for Penal Reform he suggested that the family courts could be provided with an enhanced jurisdiction to enable them to deal with some of the criminal cases currently dealt with by the Youth Court (the Youth Court currently deals with criminal cases involving young people aged 10 to 17. Cases involving more serious offences or involving an adult co-defendant will generally be dealt with in the Crown Court instead).