Criminal

Paul Hynes, Richard Furlong and Nathaniel Rudolf
Sweet and Maxwell, December 2008
ISBN 978-1-84703-133-4
Hardback, £169 

This book is a must for all professionals and practitioners—including lawyers, auditors, accountants, insolvency practitioners, notaries, trust and company service providers, public bodies and high value dealers—who are regulated and/or advise and represent, investigate or prosecute those accused of money laundering.   

“Far-reaching” reforms in the Coroners and Justice Bill need more in-depth consultation, the Bar Council and Criminal Bar Association have warned. 

The Legal Services Commission has toned down its plans for complex criminal cases, following sustained lobbying. 

Name: Collingwood Thompson QC
Position: Criminal silk
Chambers: Seven Bedford Row 

The Commission is making no secret of the fact that it intends to re-issue its proposal for a Framework Decision on minimum procedural safeguards for suspects and defendants in criminal cases. The Swedish Presidency of the Council (second half of 2009) is saying that it will try hard to broker Council agreement. 

Following the systemic rape suffered by Sierra Leonian women during its civil war, Stephanie Farrimond reports on work to investigate the sexual offences and improve the rights of women.  

Teaching advocacy began in my Inn but has also taken me to the other side of the globe. Rarely, though, has it seemed so relevant as it did last year in Sierra Leone where I assisted in a programme which addressed sexual offences. Nothing much new there for the English Bar, but this was in a country where it is thought that up to a third of all the woman were raped during the 10-year civil war. I went out in October with my husband, Simon Carr, and DC Andy Lawrence of the Metropolitan Police, under the auspices of the International Rescue Committee (IRC), an American-based NGO which specialises in providing humanitarian relief to countries ravaged by war. Focus in recent years has been made in relation to gender-based violence on women in West Africa. 

In his first interview as DPP, Keir Starmer QC reveals his vision for a 21st century service to Ben Silverstone.  

Biography 

Keir Starmer was called to the Bar in 1987 and appointed Queen’s Counsel in 2002. He practised from Doughty Street Chambers since its inception in 1990 and was appointed Head of Chambers in 2007. His main areas of practice were human rights, international law, judicial review, extradition, criminal law, police law and media law. 

THE Bar Council and the Criminal Bar Association (CBA) have today welcomed the publication of a consultation paper on a proposed payment scheme for Very High Cost Cases (VHCCs). 

The proposals have been drafted by a steering group comprising representatives from the legal profession, including the Bar Council, the Ministry of Justice, the CBA, the Law Society, the Crown Prosecution Service, and the Legal Services Commission (LSC). The steering group was tasked with the production of a viable scheme which would ensure appropriate fees for advocates conducting VHCCs, to replace the contract system previously announced by the LSC. 

With a new scheme due to come into effect by July 2009, the consultation period for these proposals will run from the 19th December 2008 until the 30th January 2009. The proposals include: 

IN the early evening of Friday 12 December, a break-in occurred at the Holborn offices of the Bar Council, which also houses its regulatory arm, the Bar Standards Board. 

The break-in was discovered on 13 December and police were on the scene on the same day. An investigation is underway. The Bar Council has confirmed that a laptop and four computer hard-drives were taken. 

All of the data stolen is held under two or three levels of security. The data is covered by a high level of protection and cannot be accessed readily. As an Approved Regulator, and a responsible authority for data, the Bar Council takes its data protection responsibilities seriously, and has adopted a precautionary approach. The protected data stolen is : 

THE Annual Law Reform Lecture was delivered on Thursday 20 November, with the Attorney General, the Rt Hon Baroness Scotland of Asthal QC, delivering a speech entitled ‘Justice for All: closing the gap for fraud victims’. The speech set out the Government’s ongoing agenda against fraud – a crime which costs the country an estimated £14bn a year – and the challenges facing criminal justice.
Baroness Scotland spoke of the need for the legal profession to engage positively with ongoing reforms and to see the criminal justice system as a public service. 

Following the speech, the winners of the Law Reform Essay Competition were announced. Sponsored for the fourth consecutive year by the Bar Council Scholarship Trust, the Essay Competition was judged by the Chairman of the Law Reform Committee, Stephen Worthington QC, with input from the vice chairs, Richard Drabble QC, Alison Green and Tom Dumont.