The court refused to admit fresh psychiatric evidence in support of a possible defence of diminished responsibility to a charge of murder. Diminished responsibility had not been pursued at trial, the opinion…
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Solicitor Advocate specialising in Miscarriage of Justice Cases and Defending Historical Abuse Allegations , writes on Criminal Justice issues . Involved in the quashing of a significant number of convictions . Currently a member of the Law Society Council and various committees including the Criminal Law Committee
R. v Carter (Joseph) [2020] EWCA Crim 105 – autism did not justify absence from trial
A defendant’s trial for causing grievous bodily harm with intent had not been unfair given that he had deliberately absented himself from the trial process and deprived himself of his right to…
Regina v Sterling Christie, Winston Trew, George Griffiths [2019] EWCA Crim 2474 – police misconduct
In this CCRC Referral which followed the case of R v Stephen Simmons [2018] EWCA Crim 114 , these 1972 convictions were quashed on the basis that these were convictions arising out…
R. v Wilson (Jamie Lee) [2019] EWCA Crim 2410 – Court of Appeal has no jurisdiction on Summary matters sent to the Crown Court
The Court of Appeal Criminal Division did not have jurisdiction to hear an appeal against conviction for a summary offence which had been committed to the Crown Court under the Crime and…
R. v CCR. v Di Stefano (Giovanni) [2019] EWCA Crim 2101 – Registrar had no power to determine an application for leave to appeal
The Registrar of Criminal Appeals had no power to determine the substantive merits of an application for leave to appeal, but had to refer such applications to the full court pursuant to…
R v KK [ 2019 ] EWCA Crim 1634 – Jury Discharge Internet
In a complex Mutli Defendant Trial where a Jury member had accessed the internet and informed other Jurors that a Defendant had been previously convicted , the Court concluded it was necessary…
R v SJ ;R v MM [ 2019 ] EWCA Crim 1570 – Counselling complainants – no opinion evidence
The Court held that It would only be in the rarest cases that expert or opinion evidence from a counsellor would be relevant or admissible. The starting point was always that a…
R v BJ & Another [ 2020 ] EWCA Crim 790 – accessing digital evidence complainants
The Court considered the issue of disclosure of digital evidence as it related to cases involving complaint of sexual offending . It identified that the issues to be addressed were : The…
The Journey to a Not Guilty Verdict Historic Cases
The Clock is ticking from the moment you are charged with historical allegations , in fact this is the cruelest contradiction in that your accusers may have waited many decades to bring…
The last 10 years of historical abuse allegations a wasted decade in restoring balance in our justice system
In 2009 Mark Barlow and Mark Newby hosted a conference which brought all participants in the Criminal Justice System together to talk about the challenges of historical allegations . A paper was…