Former nurse will never be released from prison as judge describes ‘deep malevolence bordering on sadism’
The serial killer nurse Lucy Letby will never be released from prison after a judge sentenced her to a rare whole-life term for the “sadistic” murder of seven babies.
Letby, 33, is one of only three women alive to have been given such a jail term in the UK. She was sentenced at Manchester crown court on Monday.
Continue reading...Exclusive: Man imprisoned for rape he did not commit says Criminal Cases Review Commission has yet to contact him
Andrew Malkinson, who spent 17 years in prison for a rape he did not commit, has accused the body that investigates miscarriages of justice of having an “attitude problem” and said it had still not contacted him since he was cleared by the court of appeal last month.
Malkinson and his legal team first heard that the Criminal Cases Review Commission was launching a review into its handling of his case after the Guardian contacted them about it on Thursday.
Continue reading...Detainees at Jau prison that mainly houses prisoners of conscience began refusing food on 7 August
At least 500 prisoners are on hunger strike inside a Bahraini prison primarily used to detain prisoners of conscience, refusing food in protest at their detention conditions.
Detainees began refusing food on 7 August, and increasing numbers have joined since.
Continue reading...Exclusive: Martin Forde KC says fellow professionals are ‘bewildered’ at silence over case of Jacqueline McKenzie
Keir Starmer is facing calls to defend the legal profession against government attacks on “lefty lawyers”, amid further concerns for the safety of an immigration solicitor subjected to a “targeted campaign” by the Conservative party.
Martin Forde KC, the senior lawyer commissioned by Starmer to investigate the Labour party’s culture, said legal professionals from across the political spectrum had expressed their bewilderment that the Labour leader had not said anything after such personal attacks, even after former Conservative law officers criticised the political rhetoric aimed at “lefty lawyers” on Friday.
Continue reading...Moderate Tories fear the party’s attack on human rights will alienate many voters and damage the UK’s global standing
The Conservatives risk being seen once again as the “nasty party” by trying to win votes with a divisive attack on human rights, senior party figures have warned.
Rishi Sunak is under increasing pressure from his party this weekend over his pledge to stop the boats crossing the Channel. It follows another week that ended in Channel deaths after the capsizing of a boat, while the total number of people making the dangerous crossing since 2018 rose above the 100,000 mark.
Continue reading...Dominic Grieve and Edward Garnier denounce ‘lefty lawyer’ rhetoric as dossier target fears abuse will turn physical
Two former Conservative law officers have criticised the political rhetoric against “lefty lawyers” as damaging and wrong as the head of the Law Society warned it could lead to physical attacks on immigration solicitors.
Dominic Grieve, a former attorney general, and Edward Garnier, a Conservative peer and former solicitor general, said lawyers should not be attacked for doing their jobs, regardless of who they represent or their personal views.
Continue reading...Move designed to demonstrate PM’s commitment to ‘stop the boats’ policy criticised by legal experts
Lawyers who “coach” people to lie in their asylum applications will be targeted as part of a new government-led panel tasked with pursuing more prosecutions.
The move is designed to demonstrate Rishi Sunak’s commitment to “stop the boats”, but it was criticised by legal experts who said the record asylum backlog was the fault of the Home Office.
Continue reading...Ex-president claimed that writer defamed him when saying he raped her, but judge said term is commonly ‘used and understood’ in context
Donald Trump suffered another legal reversal on Monday, losing his counterclaim for defamation against E Jean Carroll, the writer against whom he was found liable for sexual abuse and defamation and fined $5m, and who continues to pursue a separate defamation case against him.
Dismissing the counterclaim, a judge in New York, Lewis A Kaplan, said that when Carroll repeated her allegation that Trump raped her, her words were “substantially true”. Kaplan also set out in detail why it may be said that Trump raped Carroll.
Information and support for anyone affected by rape or sexual abuse issues is available from the following organisations. In the US, Rainn offers support on 800-656-4673. In the UK, Rape Crisis offers support on 0808 500 2222. In Australia, support is available at 1800Respect (1800 737 732). Other international helplines can be found at ibiblio.org/rcip/internl.html
Continue reading...Public is now asked to believe flaws exposed by Lehrmann case can be remedied by report whose author had ‘lapse in judgment’
The Sofronoff report was supposed to bring finality.
It was to give some semblance of closure to a saga that has dragged on and on, plumbing new depths in each ghastly iteration.
Continue reading...Inspectors find failures to protect victims and risks of contaminating forensic evidence
More than two-thirds of England’s specialist support centres for victims of sexual assault or abuse have been found to have flaws in the care they offer in their most recent full inspections, the Observer can reveal.
Almost half were found to be breaching their minimum legal obligations to victims in their last full inspection, with problems ranging from a failure to deal with suicide and self-harm risks, cleaning so bad it risked contaminating forensic evidence collected for criminal cases, and failures to do adequate background checks on the staff working with victims.
Continue reading...Former Lostprophets frontman reportedly taken to hospital after being held hostage by other inmates at HMP Wakefield
Ian Watkins, the former lead singer with Lostprophets who was jailed for 29 years for child sex offences, has reportedly been stabbed at HMP Wakefield.
He is said to have been taken to hospital after being stabbed at the prison in West Yorkshire.
Continue reading...The government has scrapped controversial guidance over deductions to compensation in miscarriage of justice cases
People who have been wrongly convicted will no longer have to pay living expenses for the time they spent in prison, the government will announce on Sunday after widespread outrage over the case of Andrew Malkinson.
One of Britain’s longest-serving victims of a miscarriage of justice, Malkinson, 57, had his conviction overturned last month by the court of appeal after spending 17 years in prison for a rape he did not commit.
Continue reading...Cells taken without consent from cancer victim can reproduce indefinitely and were sold for unjust profit by Thermo Fisher Scientific, relatives argued
Laboratory equipment maker Thermo Fisher Scientific has settled a lawsuit brought by the estate of Henrietta Lacks, a long-deceased cancer victim whose “immortal” cells have lived on to fuel biomedical research for decades, lawyers for the estate have said.
The story of Lacks, a young African American woman who died in Baltimore in 1951, was made famous in Rebecca Skloot’s 2010 book The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks, which became a movie in 2017 featuring Oprah Winfrey.
Continue reading...Sir Bob Neill criticises government plan for failing to consider mental health and addiction problems of many offenders
Ministers cannot “warehouse” addicts and people with mental health problems who commit crimes such as shoplifting, a senior Conservative MP has said in response to a plan to give shoplifters mandatory sentences.
Sir Bob Neill, the chair of the Commons justice select committee, said the new policy would “pump low-level offenders” into almost-full jails at huge public expense and do nothing to change the “chaotic lives” of offenders.
Continue reading...GCHQ, MI6 and MI5 propose weakening safeguards that limit training of AI models with bulk personal datasets
The UK intelligence agencies are lobbying the government to weaken surveillance laws they argue place a “burdensome” limit on their ability to train artificial intelligence models with large amounts of personal data.
The proposals would make it easier for GCHQ, MI6 and MI5 to use certain types of data, by relaxing safeguards designed to protect people’s privacy and prevent the misuse of sensitive information.
Continue reading...Monitoring boards chief warns of poor conditions at four young offender institutions in England
A prisons watchdog has warned that poor conditions are “endemic” at four young offender institutions in England and urged ministers to take urgent action to improve them.
In her new role as the national chair of the Independent Monitoring Boards (IMBs), Elisabeth Davies has taken the unusual step of writing a letter to the prisons minister, Damian Hinds, to raise serious concerns about the welfare of children in YOIs in England.
Continue reading...Announcement by body that regulates profession in England and Wales follows allegations law firms offered to submit false claims
The solicitors’ watchdog in England and Wales is investigating firms and individuals at the centre of allegations of wrongdoing in dealing with asylum applications, it has said.
The news came as the justice secretary, Alex Chalk, demanded the Solicitors Regulation Authority (SRA) come down hard should it uncover any cases of wrongdoing. “I would strongly encourage you to use the full force of sanctions available to you against solicitors where there is a finding of a breach,” Chalk said on Thursday.
Continue reading...Quiet decision ends dispute within Biden administration over ICC cooperation after Pentagon had been accused of obstruction
The Biden administration has said it has begun sharing evidence with the international criminal court (ICC) in The Hague on war crimes committed in Ukraine.
The announcement ends a months-long dispute within the administration over the issue, in which the national security council (NSC) and the state department backed cooperation with the ICC, with the Pentagon resisting on the grounds it would imply endorsement of an international court that could one day seek to prosecute US soldiers.
Continue reading...Court rules all potential victims must be assessed for support, after policy disqualified people with criminal convictions
A high court judge has ordered the home secretary to change a key part of a trafficking policy introduced just months ago.
In an urgent hearing on Wednesday, lawyers representing trafficking victims said they were at risk of human rights violations such as slavery, servitude and forced labour if the policy continued.
Continue reading...Peace between Hemedti’s RSF and Sudan’s army will not end war crimes. As UN security council president, Britain must act
As conflict in Sudan escalates, it is becoming clear that the Rapid Support Forces has returned to Darfur to complete the genocide it began 20 years ago. The RSF is the Janjaweed rebranded, the “devils on horseback” used by the Sudanese government from 2003 to implement widespread and systematic crimes against non-Arab communities across Darfur. The RSF was, and still is, commanded by Gen Mohamed Hamdan “Hemedti” Dagalo.
In recent weeks, what we knew was coming has been confirmed. Yale University’s Conflict Observatory, which uses a combination of satellite imagery, Nasa thermal-detection data and open-source analysis, found evidence of the “targeted destruction of at least 26 communities” by the RSF between 15 April and 10 July. Mass graves have been discovered, and satellite imagery shows entire urban neighbourhoods and villages have been burned down.
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