Blog
Private prosecutions – A route to justice for the charity sector
Sophie Tang
19 August 2015
Scottish private prosecutions back in the spotlight
The Fatal Accident Inquiry convened to hear evidence in relation to the tragic events in Glasgow’s Queen Street on 22 December last year has once again raised the issue of the availability of private prosecutions in Scotland.
12 August 2015
Case Update: Barrister’s appeal against dishonesty finding dismissed after barrister drafted false Grounds of Appeal
14 May 2015
Sukul v Bar Standards Board [2015] EWHC 2338 (Admin)
The original complaint against Mr Sukul (‘S’) originated from Master Egan QC, the Registrar of the Criminal Appeals, to the Bar Standards Board on 31 October 2012. This was after a hearing before Master Egan QC on 19 October 2012 in order to consider S’s failure to respond to the Court of Appeal’s Criminal Division (‘CACD’) invitation to draft perfected grounds of appeal and an accompanying advice. It was at this hearing before the Master that S admitted that he had no professional locus in the matters for many months, and that he had made it clear to his solicitors that there were no viable grounds for appeal. He stated that his solicitor had asked him to draft “holding grounds” and that he never intended those grounds to be filed but that he had meant to help his instructing solicitor who wanted to continue their relationship with the lay client who was at the time charged with murder. During the hearing, S stated that: “I helped my solicitors because they wanted to continue to work with Mr L for perhaps pure economic reasons. That is why, and I helped out because I wanted to continue to work.”
12 August 2015
Financial constraints on SFO will lead to increase in private prosecutions
The number of raids carried out by the Serious Fraud Office (SFO) has halved in the last year according to information taken from a Freedom of Information request by a city law firm. The SFO conducted 13 raids as part of its investigations in 2014/2015 compared to 26 such raids in 2013/2014. This fall does not necessarily mean that white collar crime rates are falling, but that the SFO may have limited resources to fully investigate cases of wrongdoing by both businesses and individuals. In addition, the SFO 2014-2015 Annual Report cites a proposed reduction in spending from £69.1 million to £45.1 million in 2015-2016, again highlighting a stretch on resources and the real possibility that cases worthy of prosecution will not be investigated.
10 August 2015
Case Update: Court of Appeal find GMC wrongly applied ‘5 year rule’ and confirms regulators have powers to revoke any decision where there was a mistake regarding underlying facts
29 July 2015
R (on the application of Dr Anup Chaudhuri v the General Medical Council [2015] EWCA 6621 (Admin)
Background
The Claimant, Dr Chaudhuri, a general practitioner (‘Dr C’), applied for Judicial Review of the GMC’s decision pursuant to Rule 4(5) of the General Medical Council (Fitness to Practise) Rules 2004 (‘the 5 year rule’), which is set out below:
“No allegation shall proceed further, if at the time it is first made or first comes to the attention of the General Council, more than five-years have elapsed since the most recent events giving rise to the allegation, unless the Registrar considers that it is in the public interest, in the exceptional circumstances of the case, for it to proceed.”
10 August 2015
Grant of POCA powers to additional bodies welcomed by those who enforce and prosecute regulatory crime
The director of a security company who is prepared to supply unlicensed and untrained guards to his customers, places public safety at risk and acquires significant commercial benefit from that conduct. The operator of a food business that sells off inferior products by labelling them as a better quality product, places public health at risk and acquires a significant financial benefit from that conduct.
Society demands that those who choose to engage in criminal conduct should not obtain a financial benefit from their crimes. To give effect to that principle it follows that those agencies tasked with the important job of investigating and prosecuting regulatory crime should have necessary enforcement tools at their disposal to strip defendants of the proceeds of their crimes.
