September 2012 Archives

A 21-year-old man living in a flat in Pimlico has become the first person in the UK to be prosecuted under new squatting legislation in the UK.

The new laws were brought in as part of the Legal Aid, Sentencing and Punishment of Offenders Act 2012 which became law on 1 September this year.

Until the legislation came into force squatting was a civil matter, now offenders can be sentenced to fines and time in prison.

A review into how a group of paedophiles in Rochdale was allowed to continue could lead to legal action from its victims.

The review yesterday heard how social workers, police and prosecutors had missed opportunities to stop exploitation of young girls. The review is hearing evidence about the abuse of girls by a group of nine Asian men.

The gang was tried in May of this year and received jail terms of between four and 19 years.

Employment law is undergoing one of the most significant shake-ups in years at the moment, with more key dates looming next week as a raft of changes to employment law come into force.

Business Secretary Vince Cable has been extremely vocal in both his support and criticism of some reform suggestions.

He used his conference speech on Monday to lambast those seeking major relaxations to employment law essentially hoping for a return to a 'fire at will' employment culture.

A legal row over the next generation of mobile phone networking, known as '4G' or 'Fourth Generation' is threatening to leave the UK far behind the rest of the world according to experts, says The Daily Telegraph.

The 4G network offers users super-fast mobile broadband, allowing them access to content at speeds up to three times faster than the existing 3G network.

After the Government approved it to operate the UK's first 4G network, Everything Everywhere, a new entity formed from a merger between Orange and T-Mobile, will launch in the UK at the end of this year.

The European Court of Human Rights has finally approved attempts by the United Kingdom to deport individuals facing terrorist charges in the United States.

The decision by the court in Strasbourg could finally bring to an end an eight-year wait by UK authorities to deport Hamza.

The ECHR case concerned five individuals indicted in the United States and currently held in detention in the UK. All those facing charges had appealed the decision to extradite them to the US on the basis that they could face 'inhuman or degrading treatment' in the US penal system.

A new survey released this week has revealed that up to three million married Britons have at some stage seriously considered divorcing their spouses, but later decided against the move, reports The Daily Telegraph.

The survey was commissioned by Resolution, formerly known as the Solicitors Family Law Association, which represents some 6,500 family lawyers in England and Wales who are involved in mediation work between separating couples.

The survey was commissioned in time for the first ever Family Dispute Resolution Week, which aims to raise awareness of mediation, financial arbitration and collaborative law as an alternative to going to court for separating couples.

The number of law-firm partners has fallen in the UK for the first time since the start of the recession according to a survey by accountancy and advisory firm Wilkins Kennedy.

The survey revealed that the number of partner roles available to lawyers in the UK fell in the year to 30 June 2012 to 33,662, a fall of 153.

The fall is more remarkable because the number had grown by 689 last year and by 1,466 in 2009/10.

Two men made UK legal history last week after being convicted at Maidstone Crown Court of drugs offences relating to perfectly legal substances, reports The Press Association and various news agencies.

Anthony Woodford, 23, and David Lewinson, 44, were convicted of conspiracy to supply Class A drugs after being caught in possession of 150kg of paracetamol and caffeine at Dover Docks last year.

They were spotted heading out of the UK towards Dunkirk in a white VW Caddy van on 20 April and were stopped by UK Border Agency officials the following day when they returned.

The results of a study commissioned by the Cooperative Legal Services and conducted by Leeds University sociologists have shown that for many couples cohabitation is a choice for life and not just a dry-run for future marriage, reports The Daily Telegraph.

The study considered data from the Office of National Statistics which show that the number of cohabiting couples with children has increased by some 290,000 in the past decade.

In the same period the number of married couples with dependent children fell by 320,000.

A man suffering from locked-in syndrome is set to continue his legal battle for his right to die, despite losing his initial case, heard alongside that of Tony Nicklinson.

The man, who is legally referred to simply as 'Martin', had a stroke four years ago and is left paralysed from the neck down.

His case for the right to die ran concurrently with that of Tony Nicklinson who passed away last month, six days after learning that his case had been unsuccessful.

The definition of domestic abuse is to be widened to include victims under the age of 18 as part of new plans devised by the Home Office.

The new definition will also include psychological intimidation and controlling behaviour.

Coalition Deputy Prime Minister Nick Clegg announced the changes yesterday during his visit to a youth club in Westminster. During the announcement Mr Clegg told journalists that the changes would help to expose the 'true face' of domestic violence.

Senior police officers have spoken out against those calling to arm more police officers after the tragic death of two female officers near Manchester on Tuesday morning.

Police Constables Nicola Hughes and Fiona Bone were called out to a burglary in Tameside shortly before 11am.

In what appears to be an entirely premeditated attack, the two unarmed officers were then attacked with bullets and a hand grenade, dying at the scene.

Judges at the European Court of Human Rights delivered a blow to the UK yesterday when they ruled that indeterminate sentences were unlawful because they breach prisoners' human rights, reports The Financial Times and other publications.

The Coalition Government reacted disappointedly to the news, with new Justice Minister Chris Grayling suggesting that the UK will appeal.

"I have to say, it is not an area where I welcome the court seeking to make rulings. It is something we intend to appeal," he said.

It is understood that the Duke and Duchess of Cambridge are to instruct lawyers to commence proceedings in France against a photographer who secretly took pictures of Kate Middleton topless by a swimming pool, reports The Daily Telegraph.

The photographs, which initially appeared in a French gossip magazine, have now been published widely on the internet and in several publications including The Daily Star in Ireland.

The legal action is also likely to name the French magazine that first published the photographs.

The Government has launched a public consultation seeking views and opinions on proposals to change the law to allow 'three parent' babies.

It is hoped that the technique will help parents to conceive a healthy child in circumstances which previously this would not have been possible.

'Three parent' techniques have been devised to prevent the transmission of so-called 'mitochondrial diseases' from a mother to her child.

The Information Commissioner for Scotland, Rosemary Agnew, has revealed that she will ask a Scottish court for an urgent hearing to press for the ruling Scottish National Party to reveal the legal advice they have taken on Scottish devolution.

The Commissioner believes that Scots have the right under Freedom of Information legislation to know what advice the SNP has received on its proposal for an independent Scotland.

The news has angered SNP leader and Scottish First Minister Alex Salmond, who has stated that revealing any legal advice would breach the Scottish Ministerial Code, which sets out standards of practice for all Members of the Scottish Parliament.

A 49-year-old Welsh woman, who has squatted in a house in Llanidloes, Powys, since 2001, is to challenge a new law which makes squatting a criminal offence.

On 1 September 2012 it officially became a criminal offence to squat in a residential property in England and Wales. The offence is included in section 144 of the new Legal Aid, Sentencing and Punishment of Offenders Act.

Under the new act, the maximum penalty for the squatting offence is up to six months' imprisonment with or without a fine of up to £5,000.

The UK Government has written to the European Commission to set out its views on proposals for tighter regulation of Europe's banks, reports The Telegraph.

The Treasury document seen by The Telegraph recommends that any proposed regulation of EU banks should include smaller institutions, including the German Landesbanks.

The Germans are known to oppose any move to regulate smaller banks, believing that they pose little threat to wider European financial stability. It is thought that the difference in opinion could bring the two powerful EU nations to loggerheads.

Senior EU officials have for the first time hinted that an independent Scotland would need to make its own application for EU membership, reports The Daily Telegraph.

Speaking on the matter, EU Commission President Manuel Barroso revealed that new nation states, such as a devolved Scotland or Catalonia in Spain, would need to apply for EU membership themselves under international law.

"To join the EU, yes, we have a procedure and it is a procedure in international law," Mr Barroso told the BBC.

Tomorrow sees the report stage and the commencement of the hotly anticipated Defamation Bill in the House of Commons.

The bill aims to bring defamation law in the UK into the 21^st century with a range of measures designed to be compatible with modern communication methods.

One of the crucial realms of debate within defamation law has been the use of the law to stifle genuine scientific debate. This prompted television science presenter and former D:Ream keyboard player Professor Brian Cox to hand a 60,000-name petition to Government. The petition called on Parliament to insert a 'public interest' defence provision into the new act. As of yet however, such a defence has not been drafted into the Bill.

Trade Unions yesterday reacted with anger after the Government announced plans to exempt businesses from having health and safety inspections as part of a reduction in the burden of employment legislation, reports The Independent.

At present businesses in a wide variety of sectors are obliged to have health and safety inspections through the Health and Safety Executive or their local authority.

The Government has announced that from April 2013 it intends to remove legislation, effectively exempting hundreds of thousands of businesses from the need to have these inspections.

The Office of Fair Trading (OFT), the body which regulates how UK businesses compete with one another, has announced that companies which flout UK competition law could face penalties of up to 30% of their turnover, reports The Financial Times.

The OFT has announced that it will now calculate penalties based on a company's turnover for the most recent year during which competition laws were breached, and that these will be as much as three times higher than previous maximums.

Companies involved in the most serious breaches, including leading a cartel or when there is evidence of senior management involvement, will face fines at the upper end of the possible range.

Conservative MP Mark Pritchard has waded into the debate on assisted dying by warning that Parliament would become a battleground if the Coalition Government decides to review the law.

The debate was reopened last month after the tragic case of Tony Nicklinson, who passed away shortly after learning that he had failed in his legal battle to have the defense of necessity extended to protect any physician who would help him realise his wish to die.

Following the Coalition Government reshuffle, new Conservative Health Minister Anna Soubry and her Liberal Democrat colleague Norman Lamb suggested that there was a good case for legislation to be reviewed.

The UK's drug laws have come under the spotlight in recent days and this looks set to continue after a poll suggested that as many as 75% of MPs believe that current drug policy is not working, reports The Guardian.

Last week British businessman Richard Branson stepped in to promote the legalisation of cannabis in the United States as Colorado, Washington and Oregon conduct ballots on the regulation of the sale of the drug.

Writing for the online news site The Huffington Post, Mr Branson said that there was currently a change in public opinion across the Atlantic.

Scottish Education Minister Mike Russell has come under fire for criticising the committee of legal academics appointed to investigate the possibility of Scottish independence from Great Britain.

Mr Russell attacked the work of the group which was organised by David Cameron's most senior legal advisor on Scottish law, Lord Wallace of Tankerness. In a scathing assault he described the work as 'farcical' and compared the group of academics, which includes six University professors and the president of the Law Society of Scotland, as a 'kangaroo court'.

Authorities in Northern Ireland have announced that proposed changes to the law on prostitution and human trafficking in the region will go out to public consultation later this month.

The BBC reports that the Human Trafficking and Exploitation Bill, which has been proposed by Lord Morrow of the Democratic Unionist Party, would make Northern Ireland the leading nation in the UK on human trafficking law.

The company which operates the National Lottery, Camelot, has lost a High Court case calling for a judicial review into the decision by the Gambling Commission to award its rival the Health Lottery a licence to operate in the UK.

If successful the case could have prevented the Health Lottery from operating in its current format, reports the BBC.