Welcome to the December edition of our monthly Criminal Appeals Bulletin.
The Bulletin aims to highlight recent changes in case law and procedure in England and Wales, Northern Ireland, the Caribbean and Hong Kong and to provide practical guidance to those advising on appellate matters. Our monthly case summaries illustrate when an appellate court is likely to interfere with conviction or sentence, as well as looking at the courts’ approach to procedural matters.
The featured article focuses on a current appeal topic - in this editionEmma Goodalllooks at the CACD’s “modern approach” to grounds of appeal based on procedural defects at trial.
In this issue we also look at: the latest CACD decisions on improper judicial interventions, Jury irregularities, Jogee misdirections, failure to leave alternative count raised on the evidence, an AG reference on sentencing for a campaign of street robberies and a prosecution appeal arising from abuse of process / non-disclosure; appellate decisions from Hong Kong on sentencing for money laundering and drug trafficking, the Cayman Islands Court of Appeal approach to re-opening a decided appeal, and important guidance from the NICA on criminal appeal practice.
The latest instalment of our Financial Crime Appeals section looks at the use of a co-defendant’s guilty plea in a forgery trial.
Doughty Street has some of the most experienced appellate practitioners at the Bar, including the contributors to the leading works on appellate procedure - The Criminal Appeals Handbook, Taylor on Criminal Appeals, Blackstones Criminal Practice (appeals section), Halsbury’s Laws (Appeals).
Please feel free to e-mail us or to call our crime team on 020 7400 9088. We also offer our instructing solicitors a free Advice Line, where they can discuss initial ideas about possible appeals, at no cost to them or their client. More information on our services can be found on our website.
If you would like to know more, or discuss how our barristers may be able to help you and your clients, please contact Maurice MacSweeney, our Business Development Director, on 020 7404 1313.
