‘A judge has sharply criticised social workers for giving “visibly biased” evidence when a local authority applied for a final care order in relation to a three-year-old boy with a view to placing him for adoption.’
Local Government Lawyer, 28th November 2014
Source: www.localgovernmentlawyer.co.uk
‘The Court of Appeal has handed down guidance on the approach to take to allegations of bias in long-running cases where a judge has substantial involvement in the prior stages of a case’s history.’
Littleton Chambers, 27th October 2014
Source: www.littletonchambers.com
Yiacoub v The Queen; [2014] UKPC 22; [2014] WLR (D) 314
‘Justice was not seen to be done when a judge who had sat on the original trial was responsible for overseeing the constitution of the panel of judges which formed the court which heard the appeal.’
WLR Daily, 10th July 2014
Source: www.iclr.co.uk
‘Jurors should be tested before trials to reduce the effect of prejudices on their understanding of the burden of proof, according to the authors of a study suggesting bias has a “significant” impact on verdicts.’
Law Society’s Gazette, 10th January 2014
Source: www.lawgazette.co.uk
Resolution Chemicals Ltd v H Lundbec A/S: [2013] EWCA Civ 1515; [2013] WLR (D) 453
‘The fair-minded and informed observer, having considered the facts, would not conclude that there was a real possibility that the judge would be subconsciously biased in his assessment of the evidence of an expert witness in a patent action where the witness had been the judge’s research supervisor at university.’
WLR Daily, 25th November 2013
Source: www.iclr.co.uk
“A High Court judge has refused to recuse himself from a case involving an expert witness who was once his academic supervisor at Oxford University.”
Litigation Futures, 6th November 2013
Source: www.litigationfutures.com
“A man whose life was ruined when he was charged with child sex offences after looking at legal gay pornography in a hotel room has accused the police and Crown Prosecution Service of a ‘homophobic witch-hunt’ after his case was finally thrown out. The defendant endured a ‘two-year nightmare’ after being arrested in front of his family, charged with 10 offences almost a year later and repeatedly bailed, before every charge was dropped. If convicted he would have faced jail and been forced to sign the sex offenders’ register. His father died while he was awaiting trial.”
The Independent, 1st November 2013
Source: www.independent.co.uk
“The jury that will decide the guilt or innocence of Rebekah Brooks, Andy Coulson and six other defendants was sworn in at the Old Bailey with a warning from the judge that ‘British justice is on trial’.”
The Independent, 30th October 2013
Source: www.independent.co.uk
“The Court of Appeal has taken the highly unusual step of ruling that a judge should have recused himself from hearing a wasted costs order against a party’s solicitors given the comments he made about them in his substantive judgment.”
Litigation Futures, 27th August 2013
Source: www.litigationfutures.com
“The judge who had heard a substantive application would almost always be the right judge to deal with consequential issues as to costs, even if he had made findings adverse to a party in the course of reaching his conclusion. However, exceptional circumstances might arise where there was apparent bias stemming from the facts of the case which meant that the judge should have recused himself from dealing with the issue of costs.”
WLR Daily, 14th August 2013
Source: www.iclr.co.uk
“The Internet has changed the world and many say the law is struggling to keep up, writes Lyndon Harris.”
Criminal Law and Justice Weekly, 17th August 2013
Source: www.criminallawandjustice.co.uk
“A BBC documentary on the welfare state breached impartiality and accuracy guidelines, the BBC Trust has found.”
BBC News, 30th July 2013
Source: www.bbc.co.uk
“In an ideal world, experts would be brought into a case to help ascertain what has happened, use objective instruments that quantify and interpret the evidence, and provide the court with an unbiased view. However, the reality is that often experts are recruited to help make a case for an existing theory of what has happened, and they rely on subjective judgments and interpretations. Can we expect experts to be objective? Is it realistic that without specific cognitive measures experts can be impartial?”
Halsbury’s Law Exchange, 21st May 2013
Source: www.halsburyslawexchange.co.uk
“It was axiomatic that the Employment Appeal Tribunal could only interfere with the decision of an employment tribunal if it identified an error of law. In relation to unfair dismissal the appeal tribunal had to address the issue of whether the employment tribunal had found that the employer had satisfied the reasonable responses test and any criticisms of the employment tribunal were to be directed at that issue.”
WLR Daily, 15th March 2013
Source: www.iclr.co.uk
JSC BTA Bank v Ablyazov (No 8) [2012] EWCA Civ 1551; [2012] WLR (D) 366
“Where a judge had heard pretrial evidence on an application for committal or in litigation commencing with a freezing order in the nature of cross-examination of a principal litigant or important potential witness and had come to some conclusions about it, he was judging the matter before him, as he was required by his office to do. If he did so fairly and judicially no fair-minded and informed observer would consider that there was any possibility of apparent bias.”
WLR Daily, 28th November 2012
Source: www.iclr.co.uk
“Prime Minister delivered the statement to the House of Commons on the day that Leveson report was published.”
The Guardian, 29th November 2012
Source: www.guardian.co.uk
“In Bhardwaj v First Division Association and others, UKEAT/ 0157 & 0158/11/2T, Judgment on 1 November 2012, the EAT (Wilkie J presiding) held that, although one of the circumstances complained of may have required the ET members to have recused themselves on grounds of ‘apparent bias’, had such an application been made, in fact, the agreement of the parties, including the Appellant, that the hearing should continue, notwithstanding the revelation of those circumstances, was effective to act as a waiver of any such ‘apparent bias’ and so the hearing of the claims by the ET, as then constituted, was lawful and effective.”
Employment Law Blog, 2nd November 2012
Source: www.employment11kbw.com
“Court makes order postponing reports under section 4(2) of the Contempt of Court Act 1981 due to ‘very real risk of prejudice’.”
The Guardian, 24th September 2012
Source: www.guardian.co.uk
“A senior judge has issued a warning to police, press and politicians as alleged killer Dale Cregan appeared for the first time at Crown Court.”
The Independent, 24th September 2012
Source: www.independent.co.uk
“Two national newspapers published ‘seriously prejudicial’ articles after a killer’s conviction for the abduction and murder of schoolgirl Milly Dowler, the High Court heard today.”
The Independent, 13th June 2012
Source: www.independent.co.uk
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