Category Archives: UK criminal justice

Give priority to Julian Assange rape claim, home secretary urged

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Letters to Sajid Javid and Diane Abbott call for attention to focus on any Swedish case

Political pressure is mounting on Sajid Javid to prioritise action that would allow Julian Assange to be extradited to Sweden, amid concerns that US charges relating to Wikileaks’ activities risked overshadowing longstanding allegations of rape.

More than 70 MPs and peers have written to Javid and the shadow home secretary, Diane Abbott, urging them to focus attention on the earlier Swedish investigations that Assange would face should the case be resumed at the alleged victim’s request.

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Horror over Alesha MacPhail murder ‘must not obscure lessons’

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Experts say Alesha’s killer, Aaron Campbell, is ‘not a one-off’ – and more can be done to prevent similar crimes

Since Aaron Campbell received a life sentence last month for the brutal rape and murder of six-year-old Alesha MacPhail, the reverberations from his crimes have continued as the public and professionals struggle to come to terms with what the trial judge, Lord Matthews, described as “some of the wickedest, most evil crimes this court has ever heard”.

Related: Why was Alesha MacPhail killed? Perhaps we should stop asking | Libby Brooks

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Gangs using dead rats to smuggle drugs into Dorset prison

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Ministry of Justice says criminals are stuffing rodents with drugs and mobile phones

  • Warning: this article includes graphic images some readers may find disturbing

Related: ‘It’s not just you who does the jail sentence, it’s the whole family’ | Clare Horton

Criminal gangs are using dead rats to smuggle contraband material such as drugs and mobile phones into jail, the Prison Service has said.

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More than 1,000 claims of child sexual abuse in custody, inquiry reveals

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Chair of inquiry ‘deeply disturbed’ by allegations from young offender institutions

Children in custody are still not safe from sexual abuse after more than 1,000 attacks were alleged from 2009 to 2017, a statutory inquiry has found.

Prof Alexis Jay, the chairwoman of the independent inquiry into child sexual abuse, said on Thursday she was deeply disturbed by what the inquiry found as it published a report that described the scale of alleged abuse in young offender institutions (YOIs) and secure training centres (STCs) as “shockingly high”.

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David Gauke expresses ‘grave concerns’ about no-deal Brexit

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Justice secretary says leaving EU without deal would have ‘very adverse effect’

The justice secretary has said he has grave concerns about the prospect of leaving the European Union without a deal, saying it would have a “very adverse effect” on the UK’s economy, security and union with Northern Ireland.

David Gauke said the government was planning for the contingency of no deal, but suggested he would support extending article 50 if a deal between the UK and EU was not reached, since a no-deal Brexit was not in the national interest. He added that he expected the government to act responsibly if the current deadlock prevailed.

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Mother of alleged Isis killer loses legal fight against Home Office

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Judges rule decision to share evidence with US without death penalty assurances not unlawful

The mother of an alleged hostage killer for Islamic State has lost her legal challenge against a Home Office decision to share evidence with the US without seeking assurances that her son and another suspected jihadist terrorist would not face the death penalty.

El Shafee Elsheikh and Alexanda Kotey are accused of belonging to a group of Isis members, nicknamed the Beatles because of their British accents, responsible for killing a number of western captives.

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Wales has highest incarceration rate in western Europe – study

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Prison population in 2017 was 154 per 100,000 in Wales, compared with 141 in England

Wales has the highest rate of imprisonment in western Europe, the first study of its kind has revealed.

Sentencing and Immediate Custody in Wales: A Factfile found that in 2017 (the latest figures available) there were 154 prisoners per 100,000 of the population of Wales, compared with 141 per 100,000 of England.

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