Criminal

Names: Mark Ellison QC and Martin Secrett
Positions: Criminal/Fraud Silk and Senior Clerk
Chambers: QEB Hollis Whiteman 

Solicitor-advocates may be appointed for cases beyond their competency because of a desire to keep costs low, a report commissioned by the Legal Services Board (“LSB”) has found. 

There is a real possibility that new areas of work can now flow directly into the Bar, believes Nick Green QC 

The DPP’s guidelines on assisting suicide are welcomed but are unlikely to make a fundamental difference to the way the CPS handles suspects, suggests Nicholas Kazaz 

On 25 February 2010 Keir Starmer QC, the Director of Public Prosecutions, issued “The Policy for Prosecutors in Respect of Cases of Encouraging or Assisting Suicide”, which sets out the guidelines that must be followed in respect of cases of assisting suicide. 

In the 14 years since Michael Kalisher QC was so early lost to the Bar the scholarships in his name have allowed law students of ambition and verve to make a go of it at the criminal Bar when financial constraint might otherwise have deterred them, writes Max Hardy.  

The Kalisher Event has helped augment his legacy by adding to the Scholarship’s coffers. The willingness of so many first-rate actors to give up their time without charge to put on an event for this cause is truly heartening and anybody who has attended the Kalisher Event over the last few years can testify to the exceptionally high quality of the entertainment provided. 

Joseph Holmes argues the case for trial by jury in international criminal trials.  

The objective of international criminal justice is, backed by the weight of global consensus, to replace the “culture of impunity” with a “culture of accountability”. However, there is a real danger that the administration of international criminal justice is coloured by political influence. Consider the following basic propositions. 

Mr Justice Fulford believes that trial by jury would cause insurmountable practical problems in administering justice.  

The most effective means of delivering international criminal justice has long been debated, and perhaps this vexed issue was most vociferously and comprehensively addressed during the relatively recent Preparatory Committee for the International Criminal Court, which culminated in the Rome Conference in 1998. During those memorable – indeed, now near legendary – debates the majority of the countries of the world investigated, wrestled with, and argued over how best to create a workable and appropriate form of trial for the world’s first permanent international criminal court. 

James Sharpe discusses the stages of a Law Commission project from start to finish 

Although many are aware of the work of the Law Commission (“the Commission”), fewer may be aware of the stages of a Commission project and how its recommendations fit into the overall process of law reform. This article offers an insight by taking the example of the Commission’s Report, “Children: Their Non-Accidental Death or Serious Injury (Criminal Trials)” (Law Com No 279) which was implemented via ss 5 and 6 of the Domestic Violence, Crime and Victims Act 2004. This introduced the offence of causing or allowing the death of a child or vulnerable adult. 

Professor David Ormerod has been appointed as a Law Commissioner for a five-year term with effect from September. 

Three years on from the Corston Report, Kim Hollis QC, who has recently visited Styal Prison, outlines the implications of sending women, many of whom have children, to prison 

In 2007 the Corston Report: a review of women with particular vulnerabilities in the criminal justice system (“the Corston Report”), commissioned by the Home Secretary following the deaths of six women at Styal Prison in Cheshire, took a hard look at whether and for how long women needed to be sent to prison. Baroness Corston recommended the immediate establishment of an Inter-Departmental Ministerial Group for women who offend to govern a new Commission and to drive forward an agenda properly to address specific issues relating to women’s criminality, and with a visible direction in respect of women in custody. She further crucially recommended that custodial sentences/remands into custody for women must be reserved only for serious and violent offenders who pose a “threat to the public”.