Blog
Rayner my parade! The importance of specialist advice.
Jemma Brimblecombe
6 October 2017
My Legal Advice To My Fresher Son
As I waved my son off to uni this week, I tried to give him some motherly legal advice (although as it comes from me, I fear he may well ignore it). The advice is drawn from my years of representing other mothers’ sons who have been accused of rape or other sexual crimes on campus. Because I know that my son generally cannot remember more than a nugget of information at a time, I kept it brief:
6 September 2017
Youth Justice: time to change the age of criminal responsibility?
On 8 September the House of Lords will debate whether the age of criminal responsibility should be raised. This proposed reform is introduced in a Private Members Bill introduced by Lord Dholakia.
17 August 2017
Sexual History: DPP’s clarification welcome
The press widely reported on Director of Public Prosecutions Alison Saunders comments in an interview to the Evening Standard (8 August) relating to prosecuting rape cases. Headlines of “Prosecutors told to dig into accused rapist’s past” and “Alleged rapist past put on trial” picked up on comments attributed to Saunders in the Standard such as: “we are looking at how to prosecute certain types of cases, the more difficult ones. They tend to involve drugs or drink and people who know each other”. She apparently developed this by saying, “Some of it will be if you have already been in a relationship, understanding the dynamics of coercive and controlling behaviour and presenting cases in a way that doesn’t just look at the individual incident”.
27 July 2017
Teenagers and the “sexting crisis”: sexting is serious
Sexting as a phenomenon, has shown no sign of disappearing since we first wrote about the criminal ramifications a few years ago. Recent freedom of information requests by BBC Newcastle revealed there have been more than 4,000 cases since 2013 where children have taken explicit pictures of themselves and sent them to others including a 10-year old boy who received a caution for sending a photograph of himself to an 11 year old. Greater Manchester Police recorded the highest number of incidents with 695 cases being considered including four children aged just seven years old. It is important to note in passing, that the age of criminal responsibility is 10.
28 April 2017
UK prisons: is there any hope?
The Council of Europe’s Committee for the Prevention of Torture and Inhuman and Degrading Treatment or Punishment (CPT) has published a report on its visit to the UK in which it sets out ‘serious concerns’ over the safety of inmates and staff in English prisons.