All About the New Sentencing Guidelines The Sentencing Council has published new definitive guidelines for intimidating offences, it will take effect in respect to all cases sentenced on or after 1 October 2018, so may well affect your current case. Sentencing Council member Judge Rosa Dean said: “Our guidelines recognise and reflect the very intimate,…

All About Organised Crime Section 45 of the Serious Crime Act 2015 makes it is an offence to participate in the activities of an organised crime group, this is a new offence created by the 2015 legislation. Why a new offence? The offence was created to work alongside the offence of conspiracy. A conspiracy charge…

Social Media Crime … With the ever-growing popularity of social media websites such as Facebook, Twitter and Instagram it is important to take a step back and consider your use of them. You need to make sure that you and your children not only control the personal information that is put onto social media but…

Problems with Visual Identification Evidence A critical evidential problem for courts is how much weight to place upon visual identification evidence where that evidence is weak or based on a very brief encounter. You would think that the usual rules apply regarding the jury’s verdict; if they are not sure that the defendant has been…

New offences of stalking (in addition to existing offences of harassment) were introduced in 2012. The offences are harassment which involves a course of conduct that amounts to stalking. There are two offences, stalking involving fear of violence and stalking involving serious alarm or distress. What is Stalking? There is no strict definition, but the…