Reynhard Sinaga was sentenced to life imprisonment for the rape and sexual assault of 48 victims. The student is believed to have laced drinks with GHB to make his victims lose consciousness and have no recollection of what happened. He denied the offences saying that the acts were all consensual and the men would “act”...
In 1998 a 22-year-old insurance clerk called Helen McCourt was murdered and Ian Simms was convicted of that murder. The Parole Board recently directed Simms’s release saying that they were satisfied that imprisonment was no longer required for the protection of the public. Helen’s family are objecting to the release as Simms has never revealed...
A large number of people are subject to notification requirements under Part 2 of the Sexual Offences Act 2003, many for an indeterminate period. The notification framework is often referred to as the ‘sex offender register’, and around 60,000 people are affected (although not all of those are subject to indeterminate notification). Last week several...
The plight of a 19-year-old British lady hit the news last week, culminating in reports of her being sentenced by a Cypriot court for making what was said to be a false rape allegation. There are many features of this particular case that have caused alarm, and it brings into sharp focus the different legal...
It is an offence to give false information to the police. Section 5(2) of the Criminal Law Act 1967 provides: ‘Where a person causes any wasteful employment of the police by knowingly making to any person a false report tending to show that an offence has been committed, or to give rise to apprehension for...
In some cases, a court must order a pre-sentence report (s 156 Criminal Justice Act 2003), and a report will be appropriate in many instances when it is not a legal requirement. Sometimes a court may not be receptive to the idea of ordering a report, so we are always alive to the necessity of...
Animals – Disqualification from Keeping Section 34 of the Animal Welfare Act 2006 states that a court may make an order disqualifying a defendant from keeping animals. When can the order be made? The defendant must have been convicted of a specified offence under the Act (section 4, 5, 6(1), 6(2), 7,...
Immigration is a very political issue at the present time, and the hurdles facing those wishing to settle in the UK are getting harder to surmount, tempting some people to buy false passports to try and secure entry and in some cases gainful employment. Section 4 of the Identity Documents Act 2010 makes it an...
Immigration is a very political issue at the present time, and the hurdles facing those wishing to settle in the UK are getting harder to surmount, tempting some people to buy false passports to try and secure entry and in some cases gainful employment. Section 4 of the Identity Documents Act 2010 makes it an...
In Chabloz v Crown Prosecution Service [2019] EWHC 3094 (Admin) the High Court dealt definitively with several highly technical legal challenges concerning Communications Act defences. On 25 May 2018 at Westminster Magistrates’ Court, Alison Chabloz, was convicted of three offences under section 127(1)(a) and (b) of the Communications Act 2003. She appealed her convictions...
