There’s so much you have to know…

What am I going on about when I talk about getting some ‘CPS advice’?

As I mentioned on me Twitter feed earlier today, this shift I had to give the Crown Prosecution Service a call to get some advice in relation to a prisoner I’d been dealing with.

This is something we have to do fairly frequently on the Investigation Team, what does ‘going to CPS’ involve though and why do we have to do it? For that matter, who are the CPS anyway?

First things first, the Crown Prosecution Service is the department responsible for prosecuting the criminal cases that we police officers present to them as a result of our investigations.

They give advice on the cases that we’re putting together, make sure cases are in a suitable condition to be put to the courts and it’s the CPS lawyers who present said cases to the court itself.

As a condition of their employment, all Crown Prosecution Service employees have to wear crowns whenever on duty as a sign of their legal authority.*

The CPS has been operating ever since 1986, prior to this date police forces would prosecute their own cases.

When it comes to ‘going to CPS’, whether we have to do so or not depends on the type of cases that we’re working on.

For simpler jobs, such as a minor assault or low value criminal damage, we police can make the decision about whether there’s enough evidence to take a matter to court and so don’t need to consult with CPS beforehand.

More serious offences, or anything involving a domestic or hate crime element, usually require us to ask CPS to have a look at the circumstances of the report and the available evidence as only CPS can authorise us to charge someone with said offence.

So, we police are allowed to decide to charge people with low level offences whilst CPS have to check serious crime cases before they’re able to go to court, what does the process itself involve?

Like with many other areas, each force will have different procedures but in the West Midlands, we have a program called Electronic File Build (Battlefield 4, eat your heart out!) which links in with our own custody computers.

When we need advice, or in any case if we’re charging someone to go to court, we can upload much of our evidence electronically to the File Build program and then zap it straight across to CPS.

This means CPS get an outline of the case along with copies of statements, exhibits and the like within minutes of us sending them and then can reply to us in the same fashion.

Prior to using this electronic system, we used to fax paper documents (children of the 1990s, see here) or if the fax machine wasn’t working, even read out whole statements over the phone which you can appreciate took a lot of our time so the electronic system is much more efficient.

Once the documents are sent, we’ll then pick up the phone and speak to a CPS lawyer at one of their call centres who may ask a few questions about the case and then will give us a decision.

If you hear in the news that police have ‘submitted a file to CPS’, this is usually what is meant, although the exact mechanism varies and for complicated cases officers will meet with CPS representatives in person to discuss the evidence.

Having CPS oversight is useful as particularly in serious cases, the law can be very complicated hence why it is necessary for a legal professional to review the case to ensure that we have the best chance of getting a conviction in court.

So there’s the process of how and why we have to get CPS advice in as simpler terms as I think I can manage.

If you fancy some bedtime reading, you can take a look at the Director’s Guidance on Charging but if not, simply take away that CPS are the legal experts who work with us to help ensure the cases we investigate arrive at the best possible result.

* Okay, this bit may not be true although what the CPS lawyers wear whilst working in their call centres is a matter for themselves!

Cautioners…

Caution is advised when venomous snakes are around, how do the police decide if a caution is appropriate when it comes to crime though? (Image from TampAGS)

As you may have seen in the news, today the government has announced that it’s going to be reviewing how us officers make decisions as to when it’s appropriate to issue cautions to offenders.

Whilst the figures suggest that overall use of police cautions has fallen by over 40% during the past five years, concerns have been raised that cautions have sometimes been issued to repeat offenders and for offences that appear serious enough to have been put before the courts.

Understanding what cautions are, how decisions are reached to issue them and why they are useful is important in understanding the role they play in the criminal justice system.

Starting off, a caution isn’t a conviction and so as you may have read on my CRB blog last year, doesn’t need to be disclosed when applying for job unless specifically asked about.

A caution is closer to an official warning from the police, having admitted guilt a person being issued a caution signs a caution form in custody and the matter is finalised there and then. We deem the associated crime ‘detected’ or solved and the case is closed.

Cautions can be ‘simple’ or ‘conditional’, the latter meaning that they are subject to appropriate conditions, say paying compensation, and there are similar options that we can use for under eighteens too.

Following considerations about what is in the public interest, we make decisions when deciding about how to dispose of a case by looking at all circumstances.

An offender’s previous offending history is obviously an important part in looking at whether they might be eligible for a caution.

If someone has come to the attention of the police for the first time, a caution may be the way forward as it offers that person a chance to get back on track, to make amends, to ensure that they don’t repeat the same mistake.

Working in the other way though, someone whose criminal record shows they’ve done the same sort of thing over and again will need some stronger intervention and so may well find themselves shipped off to court.

In the West Midlands, we use ‘gravity scores’ by which each offence category is given a score according to how serious it is, mitigating and aggravating circumstances are then considered which alter the score accordingly.

The final score, between one and four, indicates whether a caution would be appropriate or not.

This helps ensure that decisions about issuing cautions are consistent across the force.

As for why cautions are a useful option, I’d disagree that there’s a motivation for issuing them on the basis that police “don’t have to prepare so much paperwork” as the Magistrates’ Association has suggested.

Rather, public interest is I think the larger consideration with it simply not being the best option in terms of cost, time or use of resources to send someone who has admitted guilt to a low level offence to court when a more proportionate option is available.

Of course to the victim no offence is ‘low level’ and their views are important in deciding what is the right course of action.

Charging someone rather than issuing a caution does indeed require some extra work, a relatively short ‘first hearing’ file, but this is done electronically and shouldn’t take much longer than an hour or two to put together.

As the Ministry of Justice has announced, the review is wider ranging than simply examining whether cautions are being issued appropriately and seeks to establish also whether they are issued consistently across forces and how the acceptance of a caution impacts upon individuals.

Due to be published in May, the findings are likely to be very interesting, particularly in terms of showing to what extent the way that cautions are viewed and employed varies around the country.

In it for the money…

None for you, pimps! The lovely Proceeds of Crime Act enables us to seize back criminals’ ill-gotten gains and it’s the Payback Team that makes it all happen.

Pimps. Things they like: Big hats, diamond encrusted canes, fur coats, monster trucks, rubies.

Things they don’t like: The Proceeds of Crime Act and the good people at the West Midlands Police Force Payback Team.

Yes, there are few things little criminals like less than being told by a wig-wearing judge that they now owe several hundred thousand pounds following a calculation of a ‘benefit figure’ indicating ‘this is is what we reckon you’ve made from crime and so this is the amount we want back’.

I’ve written about the Proceeds of Crime Act 2002 before, focusing on the legal side of what we can and can’t do when we’re looking to seize a drug dealer’s pet tiger from their rear garden in Goscote.

As for who are the people who makes the POCA wheels turn, allows me to introduce the Force Payback Team who are a specialist group of officers and support staff dedicated to ensuring that crime does not pay.

Working as part of a centrally based team, the Force Payback Team tend to become involved when as part of their investigations, officers out on the street come across people living the kind of lifestyles that their benefits payments probably wouldn’t cover.

Cash over a certain value can be seized and forfeited by the courts regardless of whether they are accompanied by a criminal prosecution.

The Force Payback Team can also apply for confiscation orders through the courts following a criminal conviction and includes a calculation as to how much someone has profited from their illegitimate pursuits.

Should the criminals ignore orders made against them, they can be sent to prison for up to 10 years and still have to pay the money back.  If not paid the courts can get receivers in to gather up all the Bugattis, cash, houses and anything else of value and haul them off to sell.

So far this financial year the Force Payback Team have been responsible for recovering over £3 million in cash and nearly £2.5 million in assets.

Of the recovered bounty, 50% is returned to the force and 50% finds its way to the Home Office whilst for assets, the force receives 18.5% of the total reflecting the work and greater number of agencies involved in recovering assets.

So then, we’ve done the hard work and one day an anonymous civil servant from the Home Office turns up at Force HQ with a suitcase of cash. What are we going to do with it? Where does it go?

Well, whilst I have had my eye on those voice activated Apple iHandcuffs with the built-in wifi, the true benefit of the cash is really in enabling us to reinvest in some very important community projects.

Local examples of where POCA cash has ended up include a £750 to the Sea Cadets and funding Walsall’s futuristic Cyberbus which floats around the LPU addressing ASB issues.

Many of the successful seizures to have come from the Payback Team’s work will have started off with a phone call from a member of the public to their local officers suggesting that someone on their street seems to be managing the income from their paper round remarkably well as they’ve just picked up a new BMW.

As such if you suspect that someone’s income isn’t entirely legitimate, please give us a call on 101 or approach Crimestoppers anonymously.

Criminals only stand to lose and the community stands to gain – this is the way things should be!

Communications breakdown…

Another excellent bit of twittering from Solihull Police. How are the CPS advising decisions be made when social media is misused though? What would be a realistic approach?

As you may have noticed if you’re a regular reader of these here words, the police use of social media is a subject that is of great interest to me and so one that I periodically return to whenever a relevant story pops up in the news.

I believe the last time I visited the subject was when I resorted to using Cher Lloyd lyrics for a blog in August shortly after Tom Daley suffered some ‘trolling’ on his Twitter account.

Reflecting my own experience using social media as a member of the 5-0, I’d suggested that the police can’t be expected to police people’s usage of social media.

Rather, social media sites themselves have a responsibility for offering tools to block and flag inappropriate content so that misuse is addressed before it gets out of hand and that care needs to be taken ‘offensive’ content be evaluated in its proper context.

This wasn’t to argue that offences can’t be committed using social media, nor that there aren’t occasions when the police might need to intervene, but simply to say that in many cases it’s neither appropriate, practical or necessary to do so.

Today the Director of Public Prosecutions, Keir Starmer QC, has published interim advice for prosecutors on how they should make decisions on whether suspects ought to be charged in relation to an allegation that they have misused social media. This advice can be summed up as follows:

• Communications that may constitute credible threats of violence, harassment or a breach of a court order ought be ‘prosecuted robustly’
• Communications that don’t meet the above criteria, for example offensive posts, will be subject to a tough ‘Full Code‘ test, this is whether there is a substantial offence and it is in the public interest to prosecute
• For the first part of the test, the threshold for ‘grossly’ offensive content will be that it is more than simply shocking, satirical or unpopular
• For the second part of the test relating to the public interest, it’d unlikely to be right to prosecute if the suspect had swiftly moved to remove the content in question, if they hadn’t intended the content to reach a wider audience or if the content could be seen as ‘tolerable or acceptable in an open and diverse society’

I think this is some very sensible advice which helps address the concerns I’d expressed previously that if social media isn’t properly understood and misuse tackled in a manner appropriate to the medium, the criminal justice system would quickly find itself inundated with cases that shouldn’t really be finding their way to court in the first place.

Taking the above tweet from @SolihullPolice as an example, it was quickly forwarded on by 22,000 other users. That’s 22,000 people who went on to republish the content through their own Twitter accounts, not to mention on other sites and networks.

Imagine now that rather than being a witty update, the same tweet was offensive in tone. Take this tweet from the BNP with the headline ‘Savage Muslim jailed for life‘ as an example.

I like most people find this content absolutely abhorrent, some may approach the police saying as much.

A tough decision then would have to be made as to whether the legal system represents the right tool for addressing the offence caused.

I’m confident that the tweet is indeed offensive but is it ‘grossly’ offensive, particularly considering the publisher and its intended audience? Unfortunately not.

Again, in terms of it being in the public interest to prosecute people for publishing such unpopular sentiments, it’s unlikely that an argument could be made that it is.

Furthermore, were it to be the case that 22,000 people were to forward on the same tweet it obviously wouldn’t be any sort of realistic prospect to be looking at 22,000 separate crime reports with 22,000 offenders to be arrested, interviewed and charged.

An extreme example admittedly but it goes to show how unless there are some tough tests for which cases are appropriate for trial, investigations could quickly spiral out of all sensible proportion.

As impractical as such an occurrence may seem, it was only last month when during the Lord McAlpine scandal, there were suggestions that the police look at investigating over one thousand Twitter users who had wrongly named him as connected to a sex abuse allegation, alongside a further nine thousand who had retweeted the same messages.

I think it’s fair to say that social media and the way it is used is always going to evolve faster than the law can keep up with it. The amount of people using it though and the related potential for issues to arise likely to involve criminal law mean that social media will always have to be kept under review so that the application of the law is appropriate to the medium.

With half a billion tweets being sent daily, the DPP’s advice is a timely reminder that if we don’t try and tailor the law to circumstance then the consequence can be that it is quickly rendered unsuitable for protecting the public it is designed to serve.

For a little more on the application of the law in relation to the Tom Daley case, have a look at this interesting Guardian article from July by Joshua Rozenberg.

All these things that I’ve done…

Offences can stay on a criminal record no matter how long ago the trial. How are criminal records treated and who needs to disclose what?

On many job application forms you’re likely to see some reference to the ‘Rehabilitation of Offenders Act 1974′ alongside a couple of boxes marked ‘yes’ and ‘no’.

It’s usually only a small section of the form but when it comes to your chances of getting a job, it’s one of the most important questions you’ll be asked.

This is the part of the employment process in which you’re being asked if there is anything you’re obliged to tell the prospective employer about any previous convictions you may have that are not yet considered ‘spent’ according to the Act.

Criminal records are not as uncommon as some may think – just over nine million of the UK population have one – and so it’s important to understand how criminal records are dealt with and what the repercussions can be of being issued one.

As someone who looks at criminal records on a daily basis, I often find that they fall into two categories.

The first shows one or two offences suggesting the owner slipped up and probably regrets whatever led them to the entries on their record.

The second almost come across as the criminal equivalent of a CV – they are an odd representation of someone’s life starting with petty offences and borstal before graduating on to more serious crimes and spells spent in prison as the person grows older.

Recently amended by the memorably named ‘Legal Aid, Sentencing and Punishment of Offenders Act 2012‘, the Rehabilitation of Offenders Act sets out how long it is before offences are considered ‘spent’ and no longer have to be mentioned when employers supply you with those tick boxes.*

For prison sentences, the Act gives time frames during which an offence has to be disclosed, so for an adult an offence for which they were sentenced to up to four years in prison will not be ‘spent’ until seven years after the date on which the sentence was due to be completed. A sentence of over four years will never become spent.

These periods step down according the length of a sentence with a six month sentence becoming spent after two years and are shorter for offenders who were under eighteen at the time of their conviction.

Not wanting to unnecessarily boggle anybody so I’ll not expand here, the Act explains what happens when things get complicated with multiple offences and also sets out how non-custodial disposals – fines, discharges etc – are dealt with.

Adult cautions, juvenile reprimands and final warnings don’t count as criminal convictions and so need not be disclosed, although if specifically asked they should be mentioned and will show up on an enhanced criminal records bureau check.

When it comes to motoring offences, a driving ban doesn’t become spent until the date on which the ban ends and under the new amendment to the Act, fines are relevant for twelve months as opposed to five years under the old wording.

What will show up in a criminal record check and what won’t often depends on the level of check that’s being performed.

If you’re applying to work as a scientist in one of the government’s secret UFO labs that don’t officially exist, expect to undergo an enhanced CRB check which which give a more in depth view of a criminal background than is normally the case.

Members of the public are entitled to view the content of their own criminal record should they have one and can usually apply to their local police force for a disclosure.

Information on how to do this in the West Midlands is available here.

In addition under ‘Sarah’s Law‘, someone concerned about the offending history of someone with access to a child can apply for disclosure of their relevant offending history – see here for more information.

Carrying a criminal record can cause issues when it comes to applying for jobs, courses and travelling as this article from the BBC highlights.

These consequences often aren’t considered at the time but with hindsight, many people wish they had been when they are refused travel visas due to previous offences.

As for how long convictions stay on a record, police forces used to ‘step down’ offences after a period so that they no longer appeared on a record, however this practice was stopped after a judgement by the Court of Appeal in 2009.

Recently highlighted by some PCC candidates being forced to stand down as a result of minor offences thirty or forty years ago, there have been calls for similar historic offences to be struck off criminal records and to this end a review has recently been published in which such a recommendation was made.

I’d say the above represents only a starting point on a subject that isn’t too easy to understand and controversial also, especially when it comes to the retention and disclosure of private information.

It’s should be remembered that offences have to be looked at in context, that an offending history represents only the offences that have come to the attention of the police and that at the same time, they don’t represent the efforts someone has made to rehabilitate and amend for past mistakes.

As it is often down to the employer how to view an offending history, it’s important that decisions are made with proper understanding and not with prejudices about the criminal law system.

Whilst some offences will always be disclosed and from a public protection point of view, quite rightly so, ‘rehabilitation’ is the key word and having a criminal record should never stand in the way of this important concept.

* The Legal Aid, Sentencing and Punishment of Offenders Act was signed earlier this Summer but at time of writing has not yet been implemented. According to the Government, December 3rd 2012 seems a likely date for it to come into force.

Tell em’ what the master has done…

Making a report of domestic abuse isn’t an easy step to take, unfamiliarity with the police shouldn’t be a barrier though.

Whilst tapping away at the keyboard yesterday writing about the Justin Lee Collins case and the issue of domestic abuse, I reached a certain point in the article where I suggested that one reason domestic abuse is under-reported is because victims are unfamiliar with the police and the justice system.

No sooner had I capped the suggestion off with a full stop, I thought the following – might it be helpful to look at the likely steps taken after a report of domestic abuse is made to ourselves?

I think it would and so what follows is a brief overview of what you might expect to happen after making such a report.

It can only be a general guide as each investigation is tailored to individual circumstances and outside the West Midlands, different forces will have different procedures but still, hopefully it’ll help clarify what us police will be looking to do and why.

In the first instance we’ll be looking to gather as much evidence as we’re able. Usually this will mean taking a statement which is simply a written account of what’s been happening.

Sometimes rather than taking a statement we’ll instead sit down at a police station and conduct a video interview – the result is the same as taking a written statement but rather than ending up with an account on a page, we’ll have it on a DVD.

Alongside the evidence from the statement, we’ll look to gather as much supporting evidence as we can.

If it’s a recent incident we may look to do some house to house enquiries, check CCTV, and with the victim’s permission possibly approach friends and family to see if they can provide statements too.

If appropriate we may also look to gather any medical evidence we can, again to help build up a case and strengthen the chances of a successful prosecution.

Inquiries such as these are carried out in a sensitive manner and with both the consent and understanding of the person making the report. The officers attending will happily answer any questions – building up the case is a process designed with the victim in mind and should take place at a pace they’re comfortable with.

An important part of the role played by the attending officers in the early stages will be making a referral to our Public Protection Unit (PPU) – a team of detectives who specialise in domestic and sexual abuse investigation.

On receiving a summary of a domestic abuse report, a member of the PPU will likely contact the victim by a pre-arranged method and can offer further support, perhaps also involving partner domestic abuse agencies who too are there to help victims in anyway they can.

A particular concern of the PPU will be the safety of the victim and so they can discuss safeguarding options as appropriate including the fitting of bleep alarms, relocation and a range of other possibilities.

Once the available evidence has been gathered, officers will then look to make an arrest, although this can happen at an earlier stage if it’s thought that there’s an immediate risk.

I’ve written before about the custody procedure but can sum it up by saying that just as taking statements or gathering forensics evidence, it’s another important part of the investigation.

If necessary forensics samples can be taken, if not when the officers are ready they’ll sit down and interview the suspect to get his or her account of what is alleged to have happened. The evidence will be put to the suspect and their responses recorded on tape.

With an account obtained from the suspect, the next stage is probably going to be for the officers to consult the Crown Prosecution Service (CPS) who will evaluate the available evidence and decide what is to happen with the case.

The CPS are responsible for making charging decisions in the majority of domestic abuse cases and if they feel that the evidence is strong enough, they can authorise us to charge the suspect. This means they’ll be required to attend court and answer the charge.

Once a suspect has been charged, we then have to consider whether we are going to keep the suspect in custody until the court case (to ‘remand’ them), or to bail them, releasing them from the cells under the requirement that they attend court as instructed.

Past history, risk of further incidents and the severity of the report all will affect the choice as to whether to remand or bail but should a suspect be bailed, conditions will be applied meaning that the suspect has to comply with certain rules that we’ve set.

Common bail conditions include having no contact with the victim and staying at a certain address etc. If these are breached, a suspect can expect to be promptly rearrested.

Either way the officers investigating the report will keep you updated and you should be provided with a reference that you’ll be able to phone the non-emergency number, 101, and quote should you need anything.

The first hearing will be at Magistrates’ Court and usually happens within two weeks or so of being charged. The suspect is asked to enter a plea of guilty or not guilty, if they plead guilty they will be sentenced whilst if they deny the charge the court will probably reconvene at a later point for a full trial.

Out of the whole process of making a domestic abuse report, it’s the court process that is probably the most daunting but it’s important to remember that the courts offer victims all the support they are able to so that the process is as easy as it can be.

Charities such as Victim Support will update victims throughout the case and offer trips to the courts to help people familiarise themselves. The courts themselves likewise can offer a series of ‘special measures’ to make it easier to give evidence, be it having screens in the court so that the defendant is hidden or supplying testimony over a video link.

As I stated, the above can only really be a rough guide but suggests some of the directions in which a domestic abuse report can go once it is received by ourselves.

It’s also worth a reminder that whilst it’s possible that a report will go as far as court, this isn’t a given outcome and much depends on whether the CPS believe the evidence is strong enough to give a reasonable chance of a successful prosecution.

The best advice I can give is that should you or someone you know be thinking of confronting a domestic abuse problem and are unsure about anything, ask us or one of our partner agencies as we’ll be more than happy to help.

Finding the courage to make a domestic abuse report is one of the hardest things that some people will ever have to do – hard it may be, but confusing it shouldn’t be.

You can find more information on the court process and what’s involved in giving evidence on the websites of Victim Support, the CPS and Directgov.

Rubin could take a man out with just one punch, but he never did like to talk about it all that much…

Assaults: Fine if you’re in a boxing ring with a moustache but what if you’re elsewhere? What does the law say?

A few weeks ago I’d been forwarded a question on Twitter from someone curious to know what the difference is between the various levels of assault set out by our good friend the law.

Whilst I’ve written a couple of blogs previously about assault in reference to specific incidents, namely spitting and those happening on the sports field, I realised that I’ve not yet written anything explaining what separates one assault from another in any particular detail.

As assaults are one of the most common reports that we come to investigate, here we go then – a whistle stop tour of the four main types of assault that you might here the news presenters talk about from time to time.

Starting off with the least severe form of assault, we have common assault which comes from S. 39 of the Criminal Justice Act 1988.

As you may have gathered if you’ve read my blog on how spitting could be considered an assault, for a S. 39 assault you don’t even need to have made contact with your victim. That you have caused them to ‘apprehend the immediate infliction of unlawful force’ is enough.

Had contact been made, a S. 39 assault would still be appropriate to record if the victim hasn’t suffered any pain or injury, for example they’d been pushed.

You’ll begin to see that the main factors that separate the different offences covering assault are level of injury and then, as the assaults become more serious, the intent of the offender.

The second form of assault we refer to is S. 47 of one of my favourite old, old laws – 1861′s Offences Against The Person Act.

This one is usually referred to as ‘actual bodily harm’ and means just that, that the victim suffers some physical injury as a result of an assault. This injury can be psychological and doesn’t have to be permanent so that a victim has experienced pain then we have a S. 47 assault.

Getting more serious now, we move up to grievous bodily harm without intent which comes from S. 20 of the Offences Against The Person Act.

The difference between S. 47 and S. 20 is the level of injury caused. The S. 47 we might be looking at unsightly bruises, grazes and red marks but for a S. 20 it’s more likely that we’ll be facing cuts, broken bones and other gory disfigurements.

Beyond S. 20 we have the worst type of assault, the S. 18 which refers to grievous bodily harm with intent. It’s the intent of the offender that makes the difference between S. 20 and S. 18 and as such it’s what we call a crime of ‘specific’ intent.

The difference between S. 20 and S. 18 is that in a S. 18 the offender is believed to have intended to cause grievous bodily harm – they’ve not only caused someone to suffer a serious injury but they’ve specifically meant to do so.

The intent may be proven during an interview or from the circumstances under which the assault has taken place. Was, for example, a weapon used, were there prior threats or was it a sustained assault? All of these factors point towards some intention to seriously injure.

As a slight curve ball, the ‘intent’ can also be to resist or prevent an arrest so if an officer was to, say, suffer a broken arm because he has been kicked by someone he is trying to lawfully arrest then that person has added a S. 18 assault to whatever offence they were already accused of.

So the above of the four levels of assault that we commonly deal with, now to confuse things slightly by mentioning CPS Charging Standards.

Certainly for the more serious levels of assault but also in any lower level of assault that is domestic related, it is the Crown Prosecution Service that makes the decision of whether there is sufficient evidence to charge a person and if there is, what they should be charged with.

To help prosecutors make a decision, the CPS publishes Charging Standards which set out the signposts that point towards it being more appropriate to charge one level of assault over another.

The Standards sometimes confuse police officers as much as they do anyone else but help ensure that when people are charged, they are charged in a proportionate way.

What does this mean? Well, take the definition of a S. 20 assault as an example. If you somehow gave an annoying colleague a paper cut then technically you’d have inflicted grievous bodily harm as a cut, no matter how minor, is the result.

The word ‘grievous’ though implies that the wound is serious, whilst any wound is serious to the victim, to the law it wouldn’t be sensible to charge someone for grievous bodily harm if the harm is a paper cut, hence the Charging Standards adjust things slightly.

According to the Charging Standards then, common assault can include grazes, scratches, bruising, superficial cuts and swelling. Actual bodily harm refers to ‘serious’ harm so cuts requiring stitches, minor fractures and lost teeth whilst grievous bodily harm is seen as meaning broken bones, blood transfusions and permanent disability.

So there we have it, the four types of assaults and what stands between each one. If this has interested you, you’ll be thrilled to know that there are further laws covering assaults on police officers, on emergency workers and the reasonably frequent ‘assault with intent to resist arrest’ which villains sometimes fall foul of when they lash out at us.

Whilst it isn’t uncommon for assaults to be reported, thankfully the most serious types of assault are relatively rare.

Being assaulted isn’t a nice thing to happen to anyone but when it does happen the law has provided us with a decent toolbox to ensure that we can bring offenders to justice.

As further proof that the Offences Against The Person Act 1861 is one of the best, it also includes offences of ‘Impeding a person endeavouring to save himself from shipwreck’, ‘Assaults with intent to obstruct the sale of grain, or its free passage’ and ‘Not providing apprentices or servants with food etc. whereby life is endangered’.

Weak become heroes…

Gary Dobson and David Norris - today sentenced for the murder of Stephen Lawrence

Yesterday David Norris and Gary Dobson were found guilty of Stephen Lawrence’s racially motivated murder in Eltham in 1993. Today they have been sentenced to life imprisonment – Norris for a minimum of fourteen years and three months, Dobson for a minimum of fifteen years and two months,

I wanted to use this post to reflect on both what the case has meant for me as a police officer about to end my first two years in the job and also a little on what the legacy of the trial ought to mean.

In the wake of the murder, the Stephen Lawrence Inquiry, led by Sir Macpherson, branded the Metropolitan Police to be ‘institutionally racist’.

The damning conclusions reached by Macpherson suggested that because of racist attitudes within the Met, they had been unable to conduct an effective investigation appropriate to Stephen’s murder and that justice had suffered as a result.

A major change in attitudes was clearly needed.

As a direct result of Stephen’s death and the campaigning of his family, changes for the better have been achieved and continue to be achieved.

In legal terms visible examples include the overturning of the double jeopardy rule and the passing into law of the Race Relations Amendment Act which places upon public bodies a duty to eliminate discrimination and promote equality.

In terms of police training, much of the legislation we are taught when we first join the job is set against a background of how in the past errors have been made and what the lessons are.

Showing how importantly this consideration – the desire to learn from history so to avoid its repetition – is taken, the first week of the eighteen week course is dedicated to looking at issues surrounding diversity and discrimination.

Past cases are discussed – the Brixton Riots, Toxteth, Lawrence, Climbie, Baby P to name a few – and the learning points discussed so that new officers understand the consequences of previous failings.

One of the most important things I’d taken away from looking at such tragic examples was a stark reminder that when I applied to be a police officer, I didn’t apply to offer protection to only some members of society. I didn’t apply join a service in which public confidence in ability to do our job varied according to the colour of someone’s skin, their background or where they come from.

Appreciations about racist and hate crime of course don’t end with the finish of training school and actively permeate throughout the police force, be it in the regular training inputs available or in the practical way in which we tackle crimes involving a hate element.

Hate crimes in particular attract specific attention from specialist evidence review teams whilst cases are still with the police to ensure the highest quality of investigation and then once they reach the courts, a perception of a hate motivation qualifies for the passing of tougher sentences.

As for the legacy of the trial, it’s taken eighteen years to bring those responsible to justice. The strain on Stephen’s family who had campaigned tirelessly ever since his death is unimaginable and it may be tempting to see the conviction of Norris and Dobson as ‘case closed’.

This I think would be the worse possible outcome – Stephen’s legacy is something that lives on, that continues as a force for positive change and that is, and always will be, an important lesson on how we police.

As Mark Easton writes on the BBC News website, “Problems still exist but Britain is much more at ease with its racial diversity than it was two decades ago. And that tolerance, in no small part, is the legacy of a teenage boy: Stephen Lawrence.”

These are my twisted words…

CPS have charged Terry with a Public Order offence but how have they reached this decision?

There’s been lots of talk in the news recently about someone called John Terry being charged by the Met for something he’s alleged to have said to a guy called Anton Ferdinand.

I may as well start off my admitting that when it comes to football itself, I have absolutely no idea what I’m talking about. If you’re reading this post hoping for some insight about how the charge will affect Chelsea’s hopes of winning the Football Cup, you may be disappointed.

What I do know you a little about though is what the reports of the CPS looking at Terry’s ‘file’ and making a charging decision mean. In this shortish post I aim to explain a little about the process through which the Met will have gone to put Terry in front of the Magistrates.

Terry had been accused of using racist language towards Ferdinand during a Premier League game at the end of October this year. A member of the public had overheard him using what was perceived to be unacceptable words and had made a complaint to the Metropolitan Police. The suspicion was that the words used may amount of a Public Order offence.

The Met had looked into the allegation, no doubt referring to Loftus Road Stadium‘s truly exceptional CCTV system, and on the basis of the evidence officers conducted a voluntary interview about the matter at Terry’s home.

Having completed their investigation – gathered all of the available evidence and obtained an account from Terry himself under caution – officers then had to refer the matter to the Crown Prosecution Service for a charging decision.

Who is able to make a decision to charge a suspect with an offence – that is to say that it is appropriate to send someone to court to answer an allegation – depends on the type of offence.

For fairly straightforward cases involving relatively low level crimes – thefts, criminal damage and the like – the police can usually make the decision independently as to whether there is sufficient evidence and that it is in the public interest to send a person to court.

More complicated/serious matters or those with a domestic, racial or hate element require the CPS to review the evidence before authorising the police to charge.

Because the allegation made against Terry was that he had used racial abuse, the matter had to be submitted for the attention of CPS.

When reports were made of a file being handed to CPS, this would have meant copies of the statements collected during the investigation and possibly any visually recorded evidence such as that collected by television cameras and pitch-side microphones, had been sent for CPS to look at.

Having this evidence in their possession, CPS then need to consider The Code and decide firstly whether there is sufficient evidence to allow a realistic prospect of conviction and secondly, is it in the public interest to put the matter before the courts – the combination of these considerations being referred to as the ‘Full Code Test‘.

Once the strengths and the weaknesses of the case have been assessed, CPS will then advise the police if they think the suspect should be charged or not.

In Terry’s case CPS have made the decision that he should be charged with a racially aggravated S. 5 Public Order offence and so he will now be summonsed – told he has to appear at court – where the matter will go to trial and he will be asked to enter a plea.

The use of racially abusive language – on or off the pitch – is clearly unacceptable and if Terry is found guilty the fact that the offence is racially aggravated will inform the sentence passed. The case has been provisionally scheduled for February 1st and I’ll be very interested to see how both the courts and The FA deal with the allegation.

Not guilty, no use handing me a writ while I’m trying to do my bit…

Today’s post has been written in response to the news published today that a suspected burglar has been shot during an incident in Worcestershire. As this is a developing story the details are rather scarce and whilst it is not clear at the current time exactly what had happened, I anticipate that the report is likely to bring back into focus the debate on what housekeepers can do to protect their properties and how the police deal with such reports.

Whilst I am going to touch on what the law says about what you can – and perhaps more importantly can’t – do if you’re unfortunate enough to confront a burglar in your house, the main aim of this post is to explain why it is the case that victim may end up being arrested along with the burglar himself.

To do this I’m going to consider the widely reported case of the burglar, John Bennell, who was stabbed by Peter Flanagan during a raid on his Salford home back in June this year. Below is the ITN report on the original incident.

On attending a report of an incident during which someone has received a serious injury or has been killed, it is the role of the police to establish exactly what has happened and under what circumstances.

Whilst media reports of incidents involving home owners using force against intruders ofter portray the matter as a black and white ‘got what he deserved for breaking in’ story, for the officers first on the scene things are rarely as simple and we need to look at the evidence in front of us to establish what has really happened.

People rarely tell us the whole truth and as such we become very skeptical about accepting a version of events without there being something to support it, without the account being tested and compared with those of others so that we can establish some idea about the account’s veracity.

Put simply, if we walk into a house and find a body and someone standing over them with a knife we can’t take their word that the deceased was a burglar and stabbed in self defence.

As we need to be sure that things have indeed happened as the homeowner has claimed, we need to be looking at preserving the scene and asking the homeowner some questions. Because we suspect that homeowner has – rightly or wrongly – killed the intruder we need to be interviewing the homeowner about the matter on tape.

For these reasons – because we need to preserve the scene, gather the evidence and interview – we need to consider arresting the homeowner as again at this point we can’t be entirely sure what has happened.

If you caught my previous blog about arrests, you might remember that we can arrest on suspicion of an offence. This means that being arrested doesn’t necessarily carry an implication of guilt, only that we have reason to suspect a person may have been involved in the commission of a crime.

Having fully investigated what has happened and taken a full account of the incident from the arrested person, we’re then likely to need to consult the Crown Prosecution Service (CPS) with our evidence.

It is the CPS who decide firstly whether there is enough evidence to take the matter to court and secondly – and crucially in cases such as that considered – is it in the public interest to do so?

Relevant to the use of force by homeowners (or indeed anyone else) is S. 3 of the Criminal Law Act 1967. It basically allows anyone to use ‘such force as is reasonable’ in the prevention of a crime. The CPS have to look at the case, decide whether the evidence gathered supports the homeowner’s account of events and then consider whether their action was ‘reasonable’ in the given circumstances.

I’ve touched briefly on what may be considered ‘reasonable’ in a previous blog and will say now as I’d said then that the topic could not be done justice over several blogs, let alone a paragraph. Furthermore I wouldn’t even feel qualified to write about it with any authority, such an involved topic it is. I would say though that the easiest way to define a ‘reasonable’ use of force is that the force used was necessary and proportionate to the threat faced and absolutely no more.

Should the CPS, having considered the facts of the case, be satisfied that the actions of the homeowner were necessary, they can rule than a prosecution would not be in the public interest and any charges considered be dropped.

Crucially they cannot make such a decision without a detailed, impartial police investigation beforehand.

On the face of it I can understand that the police arresting someone for ‘protecting their home and family’ may seem contrary to what appears right. It is, however, in the interests of all parties that the matter is fully investigated so that the CPS can act to do the ‘right’ thing.