Recent legal news

Crime: a failure to prevent?

The defendant, Axel Rudakubana, pleaded guilty and was sentenced at Liverpool Crown Court for the savage murders of three girls, Elsie Stancombe (7), Bebe King (6) and Alice Da Silva Aguiar (9) at a Taylor Swift themed Yoga and Dance Workshop in Southport last summer. He was sentenced to be detained during his Majesty’s pleasure, ie indefinitely, with a minimum term of almost 52 years. Having still been 17 at the time of the offences, he could not be sentence to life imprisonment like an adult or given a whole life order.

In his sentencing remarks,, Mr Justice Goose said he was sure that, had he been able to, Rudakubana would have killed each and every child, all 26 of them at the dance event, as well as any adults who got in his way, such was his determination to cause the maximum suffering. In just under 15 minutes Rudakubana murdered 3 children, attempted to murder 8 other children and also 2 adults. The judge also said:

“In his home the police discovered clear evidence of a settled intention to carry out mass killing. On one of his computers were files proving that he had a long standing preoccupation with violent killing and genocide. Of particular significance were copies of an Al-Qaeda training manual, which described methods of killing with a knife and where to attack the victim.”

“Also, the manual provided instruction on how to produce Ricin, a highly dangerous toxin, which can cause multiple deaths and has no known antidote. I am sure that he had followed those instructions, because the police found in his bedroom the materials to produce Ricin and a pulp residue within a container.”

It was evident that the killings were planned as a terrorist attack, which inevitably raised questions about the extent to which the authorities might already have been aware of his proclivities (he had been referred to the anti-extremism Prevent programme on three separate occasions, once in 2019 and twice in 2021) and why no hint of this, or his true identity, was reported at the time of his arrest (leading to wild misreporting and malign speculation, fuelling social unrest and violent riots over the course of the summer).

After the sentencing, the Prime Minister, Sir Keir Starmer, ordered a public inquiry, appointing Sir David Anderson KC, the new Independent Prevent Commissioner, to lead it. He also had a bit of a rant about kids not going to school, people failing to integrate, civil service intransigence, and so forth, reflecting perhaps some of the frustrations of a new leader wondering where on earth to start with all the ills of society that he could not be expected to cure in one fell sweep.

“I am angry about it.
Southport must be a line in the sand.
Nothing will be off the table in this inquiry — nothing.”

That sort of thing. Yet he then embarked on a furious defence of all the public servants who had worked towards bringing the perpetrator to justice, and railed against any “suggestion that there has been a ‘cover-up’.”

Others seem to think more could be done. Conservative leader, Kemi Badenoch, called for the law to be changed so that whole life orders could be imposed on under-18s. A single request (we don’t know whose) has been enough for the existing sentence to be referred to the Law Officers under the Unduly Lenient Sentence scheme. See also:

Open justice

Following the previous week’s hearing, the Court of Appeal gave its judgment in the case of Tickle v Surrey County Council [2025] EWCA Civ 42; [2025] WLR(D) 45, allowing an appeal by journalists Louise Tickle, Hannah Summers and several media organisations against an order made by Mr Justice Williams in December 2024 to anonymise three Family Court judges, when releasing documents relating to earlier family court proceedings involving Sara Sharif and her family so that they could report on the background to the criminal trial that culminated in the conviction of Sara’s parents for the 10-year-old’s brutal murder in 2023.

The Court of Appeal (Sir Geoffrey Vos, Master of the Rolls, Lady Justice King and Lord Justice Warby) have now said that the decision to anonymise the family court judges was wrong. The judge did not have jurisdiction to make such an order, and in doing so he acted irregularly and unfairly towards the media.

In a statement, the two appellant journalists Tickle and Summers said: “Today’s judgment by the Court of Appeal is an overwhelming endorsement for open justice and the role of the press in holding even the most powerful players in the justice system — judges — to account.”

We might add that the whole idea of anonymising judges (not least when they haven’t asked for it) is not only bizarre and discordant with the notion of open justice but also, very likely, in breach of the Judicial Skills and Abilities Framework, a new version of which has just been published with a foreword by the Lady Chief Justice and Senior President of Tribunals, and which specifically refers (under ‘personal qualities’) to the Bangalore Principles of independence, impartiality, integrity, propriety and equality of treatment, appreciating the importance of high standards of conduct and of maintaining public trust in the judiciary.

The Bangalore principles in turn explain ‘Impartiality’ as requiring that

“A judge shall disqualify himself or herself from participating in any proceedings … in which it may appear to a reasonable observer that the judge is unable to decide the matter impartially. Such proceedings include, but are not limited to, instances where: (c ) The judge, or a member of the judge’s family, has an economic interest in the outcome of the matter in controversy;…” (our emphasis)

‘Propriety’ requires that

“A judge shall not participate in the determination of a case in which any member of the judge’s family represents a litigant or is associated in any manner with the case.” (our emphasis)

Without knowing the identity of a judge, and by extension their family, it would be impossible to assess whether “it may appear to a reasonable observer that the judge is unable to decide the matter impartially”. Whatever benefits there might be in not naming judges, either generally or in particular cases, the obstacle to transparency is also an obstacle to any assessment of the risk of apparent bias — and likely to fuel speculation as to its existence.

Missed miscarriages of justice

The chair of the Criminal Cases Review Commission, Helen Pitcher, has resigned. The CCRC is the body charged with researching alleged miscarriages of justice in the criminal courts and recommending cases for review by the Court of Appeal. But its handling of the case of Andrew Malkinson, whose appeal was allowed by the Court of Appeal only on the third occasion his case was referred to it, has demonstrated the institutional and leadership failings of the CCRC, highlighted in an independent review by Chris Henley KC published last year. The extent to which the CCRC’s historical failings were entirely the responsibility of Pitcher, as chair, or attributable to more widespread organisational failings, to lack of funding and resources, and perhaps also unnecessary restrictions on (or lack of proper understanding of) the criteria for reference, is debatable.

The Malkinson case and others like it were the subject of issue No 6 of PROOF, published by The Justice Gap.

See also: Joshua Rozenberg, A Lawyer Writes, CCRC chair resigns

Media law: Some Day your Prince will Claim

It is perhaps unusual for a prince to resort to the king’s court for remedy, especially against the fourth estate and its minions and mercenaries, but Harry is no ordinary prince, and is happy to duke it out with the sultans of slime and to harry the merchants of mud, by entering the lists in that jousting yard known as the Rolls Building, or to put it more accurately the Media and Communications List of the King’s Bench Division of the High Court.

Previously, the prince won a claim against the Mirror and its group, over claims of phone hacking, being awarded £140,600. And he also has another claim awaiting, against the Daily Mail.

The claim in this instance was against The Sun and its owners, News Group Newspapers, who also owned the now defunct News of the World. They were being sued by the prince, claiming as the Duke of Sussex, and Lord Watson, seeking damages for, inter alia, the tort of misuse of private information. The allegations included phone hacking, blagging of private information and using private investigators to obtain private information. The phone hacking claims had been excluded on grounds of limitation, but the rest were expected to occupy a two-month trial with lots of evidence of unlawful information gathering by NGN, of the extent of knowledge and encouragement of what was being done by senior executives and editors, and the lengths to which editors and executives went in an endeavour to conceal and destroy evidence of their unlawful activities.

The claim was due to begin at the Rolls Building on 21 January but, on the very morning of the trial, the judge was asked for an adjournment, and then another one, while the legal teams continued their negotiation of a settlement. The judge, Fancourt J, refused to hear counsel’s submissions privately, saying “In this of all cases, I’m not going to start having secret hearings”. Having refused another adjournment, the judge also refused an application for permission to appeal; but the case was adjourned anyway to permit an application to the Court of Appeal. In the meantime, negotiations continued, resulting in an announcement, next day, that a settlement had been reached, admissions made, an apology agreed, and that was that.

But why? Many assumed that even the prince had been forced to settle by the logic of the costs regime (being offered more than he might have won, risking being burdened with all the costs); but it seems equally plausible, if not more so, that the pressure was just as much the other way, on the Murdoch press to avoid any risk of a ton of dirty laundry (so to speak) coming out in the high temperature wash. Instead, we have a public statement in which the substance of the claims is admitted, and an apology for wrongdoing (done on behalf of, if not by) the defendant company and its officers and employees. In the light of that admission and apology, no one is likely to believe the defendant’s suggestion that the prince was forced to settle by the weakness of his case (he won against the Mirror, after all).

Prisons

The prisons crisis hasn’t gone away, but while some are struggling, others are doing well. There is positive news in the work now being done to reduce overcrowding and to boost the hopes of rehabilitation. Some quick links:

Financial Times: Perimeter security broken at dozens of prisons in England and Wales, warn governors

The Times: ‘Put inmates in low-security jails to tackle prisons crisis’

The Times: Inside the relaxed prison that’s rated the best in the country

Ministry of Justice: Top bosses join forces to get thousands of offenders into work

Recent case summaries from ICLR

A selection of recently published WLR Daily case summaries from ICLR.4

ARBITRATION — Appeal — Extension of time: RRY v NKX, 17 Jan 2025 [2025] EWHC 41 (Comm); [2025] WLR(D) 38, KBD

CHILDREN — Court’s inherent jurisdiction — Restriction on publication: Tickle v Surrey County Council, 24 Jan 2025 [2025] EWCA Civ 42; [2025] WLR(D) 45; Press summary, CA

COMPETITION — Collective proceedings — Certification: Bira Trading Ltd v Amazon.com Inc (Stephan v Amazon.com Inc), 20 Jan 2025 [2025] CAT 6; [2025] WLR(D) 32, CAT

CRIME — Detention on remand — Order for release: Bashir v Governor of HMP Pentonville, 22 Jan 2025 [2025] EWHC 101 (Admin); [2025] WLR(D) 40, KBD

CRIME — Evidence — Lies told by the defendant: R v Bhatti (Asad), 17 Jan 2025 [2025] EWCA Crim 8; [2025] WLR(D) 35, CA

IMMIGRATION — Asylum — Refugee: D8 v Secretary of State for the Home Department, 22 Jan 2025 [2025] EWCA Civ 33; [2025] WLR(D) 41, CA

INDUSTRIAL RELATIONS — Employment tribunals — Early conciliation: Abel Estate Agent Ltd v Reynolds, 20 Jan 2025 [2025] EAT 6; [2025] WLR(D) 39, EAT

INTERNATIONAL LAW — Sanctions — Economic sanctions: Khan v Secretary of State for Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Affairs, 24 Jan 2025 [2025] EWCA Civ 41; [2025] WLR(D) 44, CA

NATIONALITY — British citizenship — Deprivation of citizenship: Chaudhry v Secretary of State for the Home Department, 17 Jan 2025 [2025] EWCA Civ 16; [2025] WLR(D) 27, CA

POLICE — Discipline — Misconduct: R (O’Connor) v Panel Chair (Police Misconduct), 22 Jan 2025 [2025] EWCA Civ 27; [2025] WLR(D) 50, CA

REVENUE — Income tax — Partnership: Revenue and Customs Comrs v BlueCrest Capital Management (UK) LLP, 17 Jan 2025 [2025] EWCA Civ 23; [2025] WLR(D) 34, CA

STATUTE — Construction — Service of documents by post: Khan v D’Aubigny, 17 Jan 2025 [2025] EWCA Civ 11; [2025] WLR(D) 28, CA

Recent case comments on ICLR

Expert commentary from firms, chambers and legal bloggers recently indexed on ICLR.4 includes:

Inforrm’s Blog: Steinhoff, Secrecy and the Supreme Court of Appeal, A win for public interest access: Ibex RSA Holdco Ltd v Tiso Blackstar Group (Pty) Ltd [2024] ZASCA 166, SCA (SA)

Out-Law: Law ‘must continue to evolve’ in line with a rapid shift towards a digital society: James Howells v Newport City Council [2025] EWHC 22 (Ch), Ch D

Local Government Lawyer: The importance of Jervis v Harris [1996] — a contractual self-help tool for landlords: Jervis v Harris [1996] Ch 195; [1996] 2 WLR 220; [1996] 1 All ER 303, CA

Gatehouse Chambers: Take notice of these decisions: Atesheva v Halifax Management Ltd [2024] UKUT 314 (LC), UT: Avon Freeholds Ltd v Cresta Court E RTM Co Ltd [2024] UKUT 335 (LC); [2024] WLR(D) 529, UT

Global Freedom of Expression: Mestan v Bulgaria: expands expression: Mestan v Bulgaria (Judgment in French) (Appn no 24108/15); ECtHR

3PB: How to assess quantum for Injury to Feelings: Shakil v Samsons Ltd [2024] EAT 192; [2024] WLR(D) 554, EAT

12 King’s Bench Walk: Lessons for experts and the difficulties in establishing fundamental dishonesty: Samrai v Kalia [2024] EWHC 3143 (KB), KBD

Nearly Legal: No deductions without prior warning: Nathan Roberts v Secretary of State for Work and Pensions [2025] EWHC 51 (Admin), KBD

Electronic Immigration Network: A context-dependent right to notice: Tammina & Anor v Secretary of State for the Home Department [2025] EWCA Civ 24, CA

Local Government Lawyer: Securing special educational provision: R (JSH) v Westmorland and Furness Council [2024] EWHC 3362 (Admin), KBD

Local Government Lawyer: Defending decisions taken in line with adopted licensing policies: Welwyn Hatfield Borough Council v West and Central Hertfordshire Magistrates Court [2024] EWHC 3356 (Admin), KBD

And finally…

Some good news. Zimbabwe has abolished the death penalty. The BBC has reported that

“Zimbabwe’s President Emmerson Mnangagwa has approved a law that abolishes the death penalty in the southern African state with immediate effect.

Rights group Amnesty hailed the decision as a “beacon of hope for the abolitionist movement in the region”, but expressed regret that the death penalty could be reinstated during a state of emergency.”

Amnesty International: Historic moment as President signs into law a bill to abolish death penalty for ordinary circumstances

Writing in The Times, Parvais Jabbar, co-executive director at the Death Penalty Project, based at Simons Muirhead Burton, suggested that Like Zimbabwe, all Commonwealth states should end death penalty. He points out that 30 countries in the Commonwealth retain capital punishment in both law and practice. Many of these jurisdictions still send their final appeals to the judicial committee of the Privy Council, which sometimes has to consider the constitutionality of the death penalty.

A personal note. As one of the ICLR law reporters in the Privy Council, I often encountered Parvais and his team, and the barristers they instructed, usually from Doughty St chambers, and was always impressed by the enormous dedication everyone involved in these death row cases, on both sides, demonstrated to make sure that every last point, every last issue, was fully and properly explored before the court. One of the barristers was a somewhat younger Keir Starmer and the room the hearings took place in, at No 9 Downing Street (before the PC moved to share the Supreme Court building in Parliament Square) is now, somewhat redecorated, the Prime Minister’s Press Conference chamber.

As for the death penalty, following the Rudakubana case (see first item above), the Times also published an article saying Most Britons want to bring death penalty back, poll finds. This makes for depressing reading. What’s the opposite of ‘back to the future’?

That’s it for now. Thanks for reading, and make sure you’re signed up for our email alerts. And you can now find ICLR on BlueSky.

This post was written by Paul Magrath, Head of Product Development and Online Content. It does not necessarily represent the opinions of ICLR as an organisation.

Featured image: Liverpool Crown Court (Shutterstock)