‘Shabana Mahmood has ordered a review of the powers of the independent body that draws up judges’ sentencing guidelines in England and Wales following claims that new rules discriminate against white men.’
The Guardian, 6th March 2025
Source: www.theguardian.com
‘When asked if she was surprised that most of the victims of Zhenhao Zou, who could be one of Britain’s worst serial rapists, remained unknown to authorities, Viny Poon, who has spent the past decade supporting east Asian women in the UK, simply said: “No.” Zou, a 28-year-old PhD student, was convicted on Wednesday of drugging and raping 10 women in London and China. After recovering videos of Zou attacking a further 50 women, police have said this could be one of the worst cases of sexual violence in modern Britain. All of Zou’s victims are thought to be of Chinese heritage.’
The Guardian, 6th March 2025
Source: www.theguardian.com
‘Computer scientist Dr Craig Wright has been ordered to pay £225,000 in legal costs by a judge after he was found to have “improperly used AI” in a failed bid to appeal against a High Court ruling that he is not the founder of Bitcoin.’
The Independent, 6th March 2025
Source: www.independent.co.uk
‘A 26-year-old man who had pleaded guilty to the murder of three women at their family home just north of London was found guilty Thursday of raping one of them, his ex-partner, during the attack.’
The Independent, 6th March 2025
Source: www.independent.co.uk
‘The landlords of a “grossly overcrowded” east London flat where a man died after an ebike battery started a fire have been fined almost £100,000 after pleading guilty to nine housing law breaches.’
The Guardian, 6th March 2025
Source: www.theguardian.com
‘Tens of thousands of children in migrant and refugee families in the UK are being denied access to government-funded childcare because of benefit restrictions linked to their parents’ immigration status, a report says.’
The Guardian, 7th March 2025
Source: www.theguardian.com
‘Two men have been found guilty of multiple sexual offences after a court heard how two vulnerable teenagers were regularly raped over months in Rotherham.’
The Independent, 5th March 2025
Source: www.independent.co.uk
‘A former client of a leading family law firm should be allowed to sue over its alleged failure to advise about its own negligence, the High Court has ruled.’
Legal Futures, 6th March 2025
Source: www.legalfutures.co.uk
‘A PhD student who has been convicted of drugging and raping 10 women “may turn out to be one of the most prolific sexual predators that we’ve ever seen in this country”, according to the lead detective on the case.’
BBC News, 5th March 2025
Source: www.bbc.co.uk
‘An electrician has won a £700,000 will fight after a video emerged of his younger sister holding and “propelling” their dying mother’s hand as she signed over her fortune on her deathbed.’
The Independent, 5th March 2025
Source: www.independent.co.uk
‘The UK government has introduced a large number of amendments to the already lengthy Employment Rights Bill (ERB).’
OUT-LAW.com, 5th March 2025
Source: www.pinsentmasons.com
‘A gardener who was told by Paddy Power her £1m jackpot from an online game was a computer error has vowed to “enjoy retirement” after a High Court judge ruled she was entitled to the entire sum.’
BBC News, 5th March 2025
Source: www.bbc.co.uk
‘Pregnant women should not be sent to jail unless it is “unavoidable”, according to new sentencing guidelines.’
The Guardian, 5th March 2025
Source: www.theguardian.com
‘Home buyers in England and Northern Ireland will pay more stamp duty after 1 April, when two key thresholds are reduced.’
BBC News, 6th March 2025
Source: www.bbc.co.uk
‘Identifying the rules and practices that should properly be regarded as part of our flexible and uncodified constitution is nowhere more difficult than in relation to the internal workings of the executive. At one time this difficulty was normally attributed to a culture of secrecy within government that kept information about its internal organisation out of the public domain. But as Alan Page and I document in our forthcoming Executive Self-Government and the Constitution (OUP, expected April 2025), which shows how constitutionally significant rules and practices within the executive have evolved over the course of this century, a far greater volume of material about such rules and practices is now published – a response, one might surmise, not so much to the formal requirements of the Freedom of Information Act as to the informal pressures and expectations fuelled by the internet, social media and the 24-hour news cycle.’
UK Constitutional Law Association, 6th March 2025
Source: ukconstitutionallaw.org
‘A local objector to Gwynedd Council’s policy on planning for holiday homes has won the right to take the authority to judicial review after a judge said he was “just persuaded” this was the right course.’
Local Government Lawyer, 5th March 2025
Source: www.localgovernmentlawyer.co.uk
‘The Claimant, MJF, alleged that her surgery had been conducted negligently, causing a severe deterioration in her condition. The importance of the case to practitioners lies not in its determination on substantive law, but in the Judge’s observations on (i) statements of case; (ii) witness statements and witness evidence; and (iii) expert evidence.’
1 QMLR, 6th March 2025
Source: 1corqmlr.com
‘Ministers have criticised plans to make the ethnic background of offenders a greater factor in determining whether to jail them, saying they amounted to a “two-tier system” of justice.’
The Guardian, 6th March 2025
Source: www.theguardian.com
‘In the tragic case of Dobson v Chief Constable of Leicestershire Police [2025] EWHC 272 (KB), HHJ Bird examined whether the police had assumed responsibility for the wellbeing of a person released from custody. The court held that there was no assumption of responsibility, and the claim failed. Alexander Cornelius, pupil barrister at 12KBW, analyses the reasoning and parties’ choice of expert evidence.’
12 KBW, 5th March 2025
Source: pilawblog.com
‘The role of emotion in asylum processes is one that has gained attention in recent years. This article situates itself as a response to this emerging body of literature by shedding new light on how emotions shaped the asylum appeals of a group of former unaccompanied minors in England through the application of the new concept of “empathy gap.” Five socio-legal themes are used to structure the analysis: (i) age disputes, (ii) credibility, (iii) affective ties, (iv) right to voice, and (v) precarious legal status. It is the first article to explore in depth what happens during the asylum appeals process for former unaccompanied minors in Britain and the first to consider how questions of emotion affect their lived experiences of, and the process of, legal proceedings. The article has wider implications for how social processes and relations and informal processes, in particular emotions, influence formal legal proceedings leading to potential for unfair outcomes. The article finds that, to avoid empathy-enhanced reasoning becoming yet another variable leading to inconsistency in the judicial process, systematic training and monitoring are required. These findings carry implications far beyond the immediate context of UK asylum tribunals by offering empirically informed insights for theory and practice regarding the role of emotion in judicial proceedings, and therefore have enduring relevance.’
EIN Blog, 5th March 2025
Source: www.ein.org.uk
© Inner Temple Library 2025