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Welcome to the Criminal Solicitor Dot Net web site
This site provides an online resource to UK criminal solicitors and includes a forum area to discuss the ever changing world of criminal law, and criminal contracting.

There are several important features of this site that cannot be accessed unless you have registered as a member and logged in to the Criminal Solicitor Dot Net site:

Case Law Updater - the Case Law updater contains cases that the Criminal Solicitor Dot Net team consider to be important/relevant to criminal practitioners. The Case Law Updater does not contain every new case, but it does contain on cases that are of paramount importance.
Legislation Updater - the Legislation Updater covers legislation created since April 2004 that is relevant to criminal law and includes items such as Statutory Instruments, Bills and Acts. The Legislation Updater allows you to peruse relevant legislation with summaries and view the full content of the legislation as published on the Office of Public Sector Information web site.
Newsletter - web site members who opt to receive the weekly Criminal Solicitor Dot Net Newsletter receive by e-mail a newsletter containing legal news, contracting news, case law updates, and legislation updates. The newsletter contains links to reports and updates contained within the Criminal Solicitor Dot Net web site.
Free CPD - The Solicitors Regulation Authority has approved the Criminal Solicitor Dot Net web site to provide CPD credits through distance learning courses.
Download Centre - this contains documents that are relevant to all areas of criminal practice and includes consultation documents and responses.

We would like to encourage all users to post questions, answers, messages in the forums sections - by sharing your knowledge you could be helping another user.

If you would like to know more about this site then please look at the FAQ section .

Recommend this site
If you find the Criminal Solicitor Dot Net site useful then please recommend it to a friend or colleague.

Questions or comments ?
If you have any questions or comments to make then please use the forums.

The Criminal Solicitor Dot Net Team.

Why is this web site here?
The Criminal Solicitor Dot Net web site was established to provide an open forum for users to discuss UK criminal law. There are several resources available to criminal solicitors on the internet but none were seen as being open or user friendly in the way that the Criminal Solicitor Dot Net portal is. Criminal Solicitor Dot Net is not affiliated with any professional organisation and has no agenda to serve - it exists as it does for the purpose of open discussion.

Who runs the web site
The Criminal Solicitor Dot Net web site is run by Gavin Burrell with the assistance of two others. Gavin Burrell is a solicitor who works for a firm in Southend, Essex, practicing solely in criminal work.

Who pays for the web site?
The portal is not operated for profit or gain and no membership fees/subscription fees are charged. The costs in operating this portal are generally absorbed by the Criminal Solicitor Dot Net team if income generated from advertising does not meet the hosting costs. The biggest cost in running the portal is time spent ensuring that up to date information is delivered to our registered users.

Discussion forums
The Criminal Solicitor Dot Net web site provides registered users the ability to read and post messages in the discussion forums. The forums are arranged in appropriate sections where a user can engage in discussion with other users about any given topic.

Criminal law
The forums are particularly useful for discussing criminal law. Requests are often made for opinions on legal scenarios, and guidance given on new or established legislation. The forums are not to be used by people seeking legal advice on their own case.

Criminal contracting
Criminal contracting is at the heart of many UK crime practices and the discussion forums allow our registered users to interact and discuss impending changes to criminal contracting.

Updater
The Criminal Solicitor Dot Net web site provides an updater service to ensure that our registered users are informed of changes to case law and legislation. The updater service is split in to two areas.

Case law
We provide a case law updater service. We endeavour to post updates to the web site on a daily basis. We report on case law that we believe to be of paramount importance to UK criminal law. We provide summaries for the cases in the updater and where judgments are freely available online for the cases a copy of the judgment also appears in the updater.

Legislation
We check legislation on a daily basis to ensure that our registered users are aware of new Acts, proposed Bills, Statutory Instruments and Draft Statutory Instruments. Without taking advantage of an updater service a criminal practitioner cannot expect to keep up to date with legislative changes. The legislative updater provides a summary of the important parts of that legislation and copies of the full text of the legislation in question.

Criminal Solicitor Dot Net Newsdesk

14 May 2008

Welcome back Guest

The Criminal Solicitor Dot Net News Desk

New Magistrates Courts Sentencing Guidelines
Legal News 13 May 2008	By: Gavin
The Sentencing Guidelines Council has published new Magistrates Courts sentencing guidelines that are to come in to effect from 4th August 2008: The first revised magistrates’ court sentencing guidelines in four years have today been published by the Sentencing Guidelines Council. Copies of the guidelines are being sent to over 30,000 magistrates and District Judges in England and Wales ahead of their implementation on August 4th 2008. Their introduction .... [More]
[Download the sentencing guidelines] [Comment on this Article] [SGC web site]

SRA Consultation on Higher Rights of Audience
Consultation News 07 May 2008	By: Gavin
The Solicitors Regulation Authority has published a consultation paper on the subject of solicitors acquiring higher rights of audience: We are developing a new accreditation scheme for solicitors and registered European lawyers (RELs) wishing to exercise rights of audience in the higher courts of England and Wales. This consultation seeks views on the competence standards for solicitor higher courts advocates, and sets out the outline .... [More]
[Download the consultation paper] [Comment on this Article] [SRA web site]

CDS Direct Evaluation - 1st April 2008
Contracting News 07 May 2008	By: Gavin
The Legal Services Commission has published an evaluation of the CDS Direct police station telephone advice scheme dated 1st April 2008. 1. Introduction Criminal Defence Service Direct (CDS Direct) is a telephone advice service that has been piloted since October 2005, providing initial advice in less serious cases that would otherwise have been referred to a duty solicitor. Following a successful evaluation in 2006 and consultation .... [More]
[Download the evaluation report] [There is 1 comment to this article.] [LSC web site]

Fraud Plea Negotiation Consultation
Legal News 04 April 2008	By: Gavin
The Attorney General’s Officehas published a consultation paper on proposals to introduce a plea negotiation framework to be used in serious fraud cases: Today marks a next step towards a new framework for early pleas in fraud cases. The Attorney General, Baroness Scotland, has announced a consultation set to examine how a framework for plea negotiations in fraud trials might work in England and Wales. This was one of the .... [More]
[Download the consultation paper] [There are 11 comments to this article.] [Attorney General's web site]

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Today

Draft Queen's speech: bills in full

14 May 2008 12:44

The draft Queen's speech legislative programme for the next parliamentary session in November covers 18 bills. They are: 1. Banking reform bill. To protect the public from a future Northern Rock bank failure and encourage greater banking stability by setting up a rescue fund.

Longer terror limit 'unnecessary'

14 May 2008 12:39

Extending the pre-charge detention limit for terrorism suspects to 42 days is "wholly unnecessary", a cross-party group of MPs and peers has said. The Joint Select Committee on Human Rights has proposed a series of reforms which it says are a viable alternative to increasing the current 28-day limit. They include ending the ban on granting bail in terror cases, and allowing post-charge questioning of suspects.

Straw: too many white male judges

14 May 2008 00:51

Too few women and people from black and Asian backgrounds are appointed judges, Jack Straw has told MPs. The justice secretary said the Judicial Appointments Commission (JAC), formed two years ago, had so far failed to create a "more diverse judiciary". Concerns about white, middle class men dominating the bench were justified, he told the Justice Select Committee.

Met declares war on knife crime gangs

14 May 2008 00:51

Police have launched a fight-back against knife crime in London as 150 officers took to the streets using stop-and-search powers to confront youths. The operation, encouraged by Boris Johnson, the new Mayor of London, was begun after it was disclosed that a 22-year-old man was stabbed to death in Oxford Street after a row over a spilled fizzy drink. Steven Bigby, 22, was knifed in the heart after clashing with a gang of four men in a McDonald's restaurant on Britain's busiest shopping street. Two men aged 18 and 19 were last night being questioned by police.

Anti-terror law used to snoop on fisherm...

14 May 2008 00:49

A council which used anti-terrorism powers to check whether a child lived within a school's catchment area has used the same law to spy on fishermen, it has emerged. Poole council used a covert surveillance team to gather evidence of shellfish being illegally gathered in Poole Harbour, Dorset. The snooping was carried out under the Regulation of Investigatory Powers Act, which was originally intended for use in the fight against crime and terrorism but which has been used by some councils to clamp down on such minor offences as dog fouling.

Human rights law 'shielding rapists'

14 May 2008 00:47

A senior police officer has launched a scathing attack against "appalling" murderers and rapists who protect themselves from justice using the Human Rights Act. Det Chief Supt Chris Gregg, lauded as one of the country's finest detectives, said dangerous criminals were trying to use the legislation as a loophole. "These criminals have committed such appalling crimes and it is the families of the victims who are left behind and have to suffer the indignity of hearing them claim their human rights have been breached," he said.

Yesterday

Knife crime 'not increasing'

13 May 2008 12:08

The fatal stabbing of a man yesterday in one of London's busiest shopping streets in broad daylight has again thrown up headlines about knife crime in Britain. Boris Johnson, in accepting the office of London mayor, pledged to rid the capital of the "scourge" of knife crime. Just hours beforehand, 15-year-old Lylle Tulloch had been stabbed to death in stairwell in Southwark, the 12th teenage fatality in London this year. Since then, 16-year-old Jimmy Mizen was murdered in south-east London, and yesterday a young man in his twenties was knifed outside a McDonalds in Oxford Street.

Now cannabis dealers will escape jail de...

13 May 2008 12:06

Cannabis dealers will escape jail, despite Gordon Brown's decision to reclassify the drug, it emerged last night. The U-turn was supposed to signal tougher punishments for those who flout the law. But, under papers issued by the Sentencing Guidelines Council yesterday, magistrates will still be advised that a community order may be satisfactory for those who push Class B substances, the new grade for cannabis.

Knife offenders may get off with just a ...

13 May 2008 00:17

Criminals convicted of carrying knives are likely to escape jail under sentencing guidelines issued on Monday. Magistrates have been told that the "starting point" for sentencing many offenders caught with knives should be a community order. Some may be let off with a fine and even carrying a knife in school may not result in a custodial sentence.

Police fire taser guns 164 times in thre...

13 May 2008 00:16

Police fired Taser guns more than 150 times in a three-month period, Home Office figures showed today. The latest statistics showed electric stun weapons were used 164 times between December last year and the end of February. Last year the Home Office relaxed the rules on the use of the weapons, which deliver a 50,000 volt disabling shock.

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