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March 2012 |
Having witnessed the assessment process for the CPS Advocacy Panels, Ian Wade QC reveals what he saw and asks, “Did the CPS make the grade?”
As the Criminal Bar faces unending tribulation, here came yet more you didn’t want – Crown Prosecution Service grading. Following the 2009 HMCPSi report, from which neither “in-house” nor external advocates emerged with a clean bill of health, the Director of Public Prosecutions declared a commitment to improved advocacy. The inspectorate recommended a unified system of grading for all prosecution advocates, so a new assessment regime became inevitable. For many self employed advocates the brave new world of competency based and evidence tested rigour has not hitherto touched their lives, and sadly this was a block waiting to be stumbled over. Many highly competent, well regarded advocates did not get the Level they applied for, and may be perplexed at the outcome. Too often they had only themselves to blame. Simply asserting, “I am a great barrister” no longer cuts the mustard.
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February 2012 |
David Pittaway QC, Chair of the Neuberger Monitoring and Implementation Working Group until the end of 2011, reports on the progress that has been made at the Bar in improving access to the profession
Last September I took part in a filmed interview for a BBC2 programme on social mobility within the professions. Its working title was “Who stole the best jobs?” later changed to “Who has the best jobs?” The interview lasted 90 minutes and ended up on the cutting room floor. The content was apparently not sufficiently newsworthy. The actual momentum of change did not meet the perception of privilege. The broadcast programme focused on other professions with the Bar coming out of it relatively unscathed.
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February 2012 |
Stephen Akinsanya explains how some lateral thinking - and an ipad2 - saved the day, time and money in a criminal court
It was the moment that every defence counsel dreads; a returned trial on a Friday and the discovery, as you read the brief, that a key defence witness was a Lance Corporal serving with the Royal Lancashire Regiment who had been flown to Cyprus prior to taking up duties in Afghanistan.
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February 2012 |
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asks David Taylor as he warns barristers of their duties under the Data Protection Act 1988
Barristers and their chambers can no longer be complacent about their duties under the Data Protection Act 1998 (DPA), and fines of up to £500,000 are now within the power of the Information Commissioner’s Office (ICO). Worse still: if you fight your corner in court, then unlimited fines and up to five years in prison are added to the armoury. If that weren’t incentive enough to keep your data safe, many breaches of the act are also criminal offences of strict liability.
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Rape Sentencing