March 2016 – Page 12 – Current Awareness

Director of Public Prosecutions v Henderson – WLR Daily

Posted March 15th, 2016 in crime, harassment, law reports, racism by sally

Director of Public Prosecutions v Henderson [2016] EWHC 464 (Admin)

‘The defendant was charged with three offences of racially aggravated harassment, contrary to section 31(1)(b) of the Crime and Disorder Act 1998 and, in the alternative, three offences of harassment, contrary to section 4A of the Public Order Act 1986. Both sets of offences were alleged to have been committed against the same victims and arose out of the same set of facts. Following the trial, the defendant was convicted of the three racially aggravated offences but, having heard submissions from the defendant’s representative, the district judge declined to announce a verdict on the section 4A offences (“the underlying offences”) and adjourned the case. The matter came before a different district judge who concluded that the facts of the underlying offences had been proved before the district judge at trial with the result that guilty verdicts should be returned in relation to the three underlying offences, with no separate penalty being imposed. In so doing, the district judge rejected the defendant’s submission that the correct course of action, the aggravated offences having been proved, was to adjourn the underlying offences sine die pursuant to the power in section 10 of the Magistrates’ Court Act 1980. The defendant challenged his conviction on the underlying offences by way of an appeal by case stated.’

WLR Daily, 9th March 2016

Source: www.iclr.co.uk

Cocking and another v Eacott and another – WLR Daily

Posted March 15th, 2016 in appeals, families, landlord & tenant, law reports, nuisance by sally

Cocking and another v Eacott and another [2016] EWCA Civ 140

‘The second defendant owned but did not occupy a property. She granted the first defendant, her daughter, a bare licence to live there. The second defendant paid all the bills and maintained the property and her daughter did not pay any rent. The claimant owners of the next door property complained about the excessive barking of the daughter’s dog. The claimants wrote a letter before action to which the second defendant responded that a landlord was not liable for nuisance committed by a tenant, that she was not personally involved in the alleged incidents and that she was estranged from her daughter. The claimants issued proceedings against the second defendant and her daughter for nuisance. The second defendant served a notice to quit on her daughter and obtained a possession order which she did not enforce. The second defendant did not accept the claimants’ offer of a settlement if she permanently evicted her daughter from the property. The judge held that the second defendant was liable in nuisance to the claimants even though she did not occupy the property from which the nuisance emanated, concluding that liability attached once the owner knew or was deemed to know of the nuisance and had failed after a reasonable time to abate it and therefore if the owner chose to do nothing then she became liable for it with the actual creator of the nuisance.’

WLR Daily, 9th March 2016

Source: www.iclr.co.uk

Littlestone and others v Macleish – WLR Daily

Posted March 15th, 2016 in appeals, civil procedure rules, costs, law reports, part 36 offers by sally

Littlestone and others v Macleish [2016] EWCA Civ 127

‘An admitted payment on account of a claim following a Part 36 offer to settle a claim of a higher amount was, in the absence of contrary agreement, made as much on account of the Part 36 offer as on account of the full sum claimed. It would be an absurdity for a defendant to be bound to pay an aggregated total of a Part 36 offer and an admissions payment that was larger than the total sum claimed (paras 23–24).’

WLR Daily, 10th March 2016

Source: www.iclr.co.uk

British women cannot wait 50 years for justice – The Guardian

Posted March 15th, 2016 in equality, judiciary, legislation, news, quotas, sex discrimination, women by sally

‘Men’s domination of the senior echelons of the British judiciary means the law is biased against women. We urgently need gender quotas for women in senior legal roles.’