Weekly Notes: legal news from ICLR, 6 October 2025
We kick off the new legal year with a roundup of what’s been going on over the long vacation. New appointments, old problems, and plenty of case law and commentary.… Continue reading about Weekly Notes: legal news from ICLR, 6 October 2025
David Lammy LC flanked by the Lady Chief Justice and the Master of the Rolls (Photo from Judiciary website)
Recent legal news
Appointments
David Lammy MP was appointed Lord Chancellor and Secretary of State for Justice in a mini-shuffle of Cabinet roles prompted by the resignation of Angela Rayner MP as deputy prime minister and housing secretary following revelations about her tax affairs. When the music stopped, former Lord Chancellor Shabana Mahmood MP found herself sitting in the Home Office chair, while Yvette Cooper MP was now Foreign Secretary, and the only chair left for Lammy as her predecessor was the one Mahmood had lately occupied. There were some other re-assignments of seating round the now silent Cabinet table, which we needn’t go into here.
The good thing about Lammy now being in charge of justice is that it will give him a perfect opportunity to implement all the recommendations made by a one David Lammy MP in the Final Report of the Lammy Review into the treatment of, and outcomes for Black, Asian and Minority Ethnic individuals in the criminal justice system in 2017.
Giving his swearing-in speech as Lord Chancellor, Lammy said “My whole life has been about justice” and, rather poetically,
“From student, to barrister, to practice in California…
Justice has been my compass.
Justice has been my cause.
And now, as Lord Chancellor,
Justice is my charge…”
Let us pray…
The legal year began with prayers, in Westminster Abbey, and a feast, served at lunchtime but known as the Lord Chancellor’s Breakfast.
The next day the Church of England, in whose communion those legal prayers were offered, announced its own major new appointment. While its titular head, in the person of the British monarch, has been both male and female, it now for the first time has a female prelate to lead its clergy: on 3 October the Government announced that its titular head, King Charles III, had approved the appointment of The Right Reverend and Right Honourable Dame Sarah Mullally DBE for election as Lord Archbishop of Canterbury, Primate of All England and Metropolitan.
Bullying at the Bar
In response to research on the extent of bullying, harassment and sexual harassment at the Bar, in June 2024 the Bar Council commissioned an independent review chaired by Baroness Harriet Harman KC. Her report was published last month. It made 36 recommendations and identified the organisations responsible for taking them forward: see Report of the independent review of bullying, harassment and sexual harassment at the Bar.
Launching the report, Baroness Harman said:
“This is a moment of reckoning for the Bar. I am confident the Bar will face up to the challenge of taking the decisive action I propose. Change is always hard, particularly in an ancient institution. But evolutionary, incremental change won’t cut it.”
Welcoming the report, Barbara Mills KC, Chair of the Bar Council said:
“This is a once in a generation opportunity for the Bar to change its culture — and for all of us that change starts now.”
The report acknowledges that the Bar is a competitive and hierarchical profession and provides opportunities for barristers and judges to abuse their position. But they need to recognise the risks and support those who complain, and the professional regulatory bodies need to make the system more efficient and effective, and with more deterrent sanctions. “The complaints system needs a complete overhaul,” says the report, “with support for complainants and time-limits to end the problem of cases dragging on for years”.
See also: Joshua Rozenberg, A Lawyer Writes: Ban on bullying at the bar
Cyber security
A law firm whose client data had been hacked was the subject of a batch of recent decisions of the Legal Ombudsman published at the end of last month. The Legal Services Act gives the Legal Ombudsman the power to publish our ombudsman final decisions in full, naming the legal service provider, where it is considered that it is in the public interest to do so. Legal Futures pointed out that the list of decisions published on 30 September had also named barristers for the first time.
The law firm in question had to pay over £40,000 to its conveyancing client after both were the victims of cybercrime. The firm had failed to warn the client when buying an investment property about the risk of cybercrime. Shortly before exchange, the client received an email from an address belonging to the firm, telling him to pay his deposit to a different bank account. The firm had actually been hacked and the money was lost to fraudsters. Only some of it was recovered. The ombudsman noted that cases like this “serve as a reminder of the importance of staying vigilant in this area, and the financial and reputational damage that could result where providers don’t do so”.
Cybercrime and data hacking seems to have become something of an epidemic, with everyone from children’s nurseries to government departments and multinational manufacturers falling victim to leaks and vulnerabilities. In the case of the children’s nursery chain, Kido Schools, the BBC reported that the Hackers say they have deleted children’s pictures and data after nursery attack backlash. Many parents of the affected children were less than convinced by the hackers’ sudden change of heart (assuming they have one). Although the loss of personal data is dangerous and should properly be subject to regulatory action by the Information Commissioners Office, the effect on jobs and economic activity generally can also be significant, as the incidents involving retailers and manufacturers has demonstrated.
According to the BBC, the latest rash of attacks is the result of a new breed of domestic hackers being easily able to get hold of ransomware (software which can lock up or encrypt a victim’s computer networks until a ransom is paid) from the mainly Russian-speaking cyber criminals who used to be the main perpetrators. What makes big companies particularly vulnerable is the way in which their supply chains work, using “just in time” delivery across complex supply chains: see The true cost of cyber attacks — and the business weak spots that allow them to happen. But it can happen to any organisation. The 2024 Cyber Breaches Survey suggested that half of all businesses (50%) and around a third of charities (32%) had suffered some form of cyber security breach or attack in the preceding twelve months.
For the legal profession, the Law Society has updated its guide to Cyber security guidance for solicitors, and the Bar Council in conjunction with Mitigo have also provided a guide, Cyber Security Matters, for barristers and chambers. Cilex, which regulates legal executives, points out that:
“The upcoming Cyber Security and Resilience Bill (2025) has been presented to Parliament but has not yet been enacted into law. The Bill aims to strengthen the UK’s cyber defences, protect critical infrastructure and essential digital services, and address vulnerabilities in the current regulatory framework, which is based on the 2018 NIS Regulations inherited from the EU.
The government also encourages businesses, charities and educational institutions to continue to follow the free help and guidance from the UK cyber security experts at the National Cyber Security Centre (NCSC).”
There is also a helpful guide from law firm Slaughter & May on What will the Cyber Security and Resilience Bill mean for your organisation?
Recent case summaries from ICLR
A selection of recently published WLR Daily case summaries from ICLR.4
CONFLICT OF LAWS — Sovereign immunity — Contract of employment: Royal Embassy of Saudi Arabia (Cultural Bureau) v Alhayali, 11 Sep 2025 [2025] EWCA Civ 1162; [2025] WLR(D) 460, CA
CRIME — Criminal Injuries Compensation Authority — Compensation, whether payable: R (Stephenson) v First-Tier Tribunal, 12 Sep 2025 [2025] EWCA Civ 1160; [2025] WLR(D) 466, CA
CRIME — Plea — Fitness to plead: R v Kurtaj, 11 Sep 2025 [2025] EWCA Crim 1163; [2025] WLR(D) 459, CA
DISCRIMINATION — Disability — Disability-related: GL v AB SpA, 11 Sep 2025 (Case C-38/24); EU:C:2025:690; [2025] WLR(D) 478, ECJ
HOUSING — Homeless persons — Housing needs assessment: Fatolahzadeh v Barnet London Borough Council, 18 Sep 2025 [2025] EWCA Civ 1174; [2025] WLR(D) 472, CA
INJUNCTION — Interim — Undertaking as to damages: Gotti v Perrett, 22 Sep 2025 [2025] EWCA Civ 1168; [2025] WLR(D) 479, CA
LOCAL GOVERNMENT — Election — Petition: Moore v Royal Mail Group Ltd and others, 11 Sep 2025 [2025] EWHC 2320 (KB); [2025] WLR(D) 470, DC
PRACTICE — Service out of Jurisdiction — Application to Set Aside Service: Campeau v Gottex Real Asset Fund 1 (OE) Waste SÀRL, 12 Sep 2025 [2025] EWHC 2322 (Comm); [2025] WLR(D) 475, KBD
SOLICITOR — Costs — Damages-based agreement: Reeves v Frain, 10 Sep 2025 [2025] EWHC 2311 (KB); [2025] WLR(D) 474, KBD
TRUSTS — Declaration of trust — Land: Crescent Gas Corpn Ltd v National Iranian Oil Co, 30 Sep 2025 [2025] EWCA Civ 1211; [2025] WLR(D) 480, CA
Recent case comments on ICLR
Expert commentary from firms, chambers and legal bloggers recently indexed on ICLR.4 includes:
Transparency Project: 14 year old boy taken to Ghana — Appeal judgment: Re S (Wardship: Removal to Ghana) [2025] EWCA Civ 1011, CA
Court of Protection Open Justice Project: Wrongful arrest and a secret prison sentence: DJ Taylor (Truro) and the failure of open justice: Cornwall Council v Orange, 06 Jan 2025 Judgment, Ct of Protection
Dexter Montague LLP: LOST IN TRANSLATION? Gender Reassignment Surgery in Financial Remedy Proceedings is making Headlines in the Media for all the wrong reasons: JY v KF [2025] EWFC 195 (B), Fam Ct
A Lawyer Writes: Safer in Ghana? Re S (Wardship: Removal to Ghana) [2025] EWCA Civ 1011, CA
Law & Religion UK: Russian violations of the ECHR: Ukraine and The Netherlands v Russia (Application nos. 8019/16, 43800/14, 28525/20 and 11055/22), ECtHR (GC)
Nearly Legal: A database, homelessness duties and claimed indirect discrimination: R (Begum) v Tower Hamlets London Borough Council[2025] EWCA Civ 1049; [2025] WLR(D) 430, CA
UK Human Rights Blog: Keeping PACE: Searson v Chief Constable of Nottinghamshire Police [2025] EWHC 1982 (KB); [2025] WLR(D) 416, KBD
Law & Religion UK: When mere defamation Isn’t enough: “serious reputational harm” in Hegab: Hegab v The Spectator (1828) Ltd[2025] EWHC 2043 (KB), KBD
A Lawyer Writes: 100,000 Afghans ‘put at risk’: R (CX1) v Secretary of State for Defence [2024] EWHC 892 (Admin), DC
Law & Religion UK: When failure to intervene becomes constructive dismissal: Makombe v Cape Conference of the Seventh Day Adventist [2025] ZALAC 22, LAC (SA)
UK Human Rights Blog: Patient in permanent vegetative state to be kept alive — Court of Protection; A Lawyer Writes: Patient must be kept alive; Law & Religion UK: Spiritual conviction, medical ethics and the Court of Protection: The Hillingdon Hospitals NHS Foundation Trust v YD & Others (Refusal of Withdrawal of Treatment) [2025] EWCOP 31 (T3), Ct of Protection
Nearly Legal: And I still haven’t found what I’m looking for — changing deposit schemes: Ameera Macintyre v Cowdray Trust Limited and Rathbones Trust Company Limited [2025] EWCC 54, County Ct
Free Movement: Court of Appeal upholds SIAC decision on correct approach in deprivation appeals: D5 v Secretary of State for the Home Department [2025] EWCA Civ 957, CA
UK Human Right Blog: Supreme Court upholds sanctions on Eugene Shvidler and Dalston Projects in test case for UK regime: Dalston Projects Ltd v Secretary of State for Transport [2025] UKSC 30; [2025] WLR(D) 433, SC(E)
ICLR Blog: Balancing national policy against local policy and protest: the Epping Forest asylum hotel case: Epping Forest District Council v Somani Hotels Ltd [2025] EWHC 2183 (KB); [2025] WLR(D) 445, KBD
And finally…
Tryloywdr and open justice
The ICLR is, in full, the Incorporated Council of Law Reporting for England and Wales, but we believe that until last month it had yet to publish a case in Welsh.
That changed with the publication of the judgment of HHJ Mererid Edwards in the Court of Protection in the case of TIRE (by her Litigation Friend LK) v Carmarthenshire County Council [2024] EWCOP 81 (T2).
According to commentary on the Transparency Project blog,
“It may be that this published judgment helps achieve more tryloywdr (transparency) in decision making in Wales, especially as it includes an appendix setting out the application of relevant Mental Capacity Act provisions in Welsh, compiled by the parties’ lawyers.”
The judgment appears to have been given orally and then transcribed before being distributed via the National Archives’ Find Case Law website, but on ICLR.4 it appears (for subscribers) with the added benefit of an AI-generated summary, in English. It seems the AI had no difficulty reading and summarising the Welsh text, but as it’s been programmed (or prompted) to generate the summary in English it effectively translated it too.
That’s it for this week. Thanks for reading, and make sure you’re signed up for our email alerts. You can also follow us on BlueSky and LinkedIn
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.