Legal News Round-Up – December 2023

Law Articles From Around the Web Last Month…

A week into the new year and with the festivities firmly out of the way, now is the perfect chance to look back at December 2023 for our latest monthly legal news round-up.

Focusing on criminal law, motoring law, sexual offences and regulatory law, we’ll keep you abreast of the big cases, law changes and latest legal features.

Victims’ despair at delays for justice led to the collapse of 150 rape trials in the past year, figures reveal

The Daily Mail reported this week has revealed that 150 rape trials collapsed in 2023 with victims pulling out of the prosecution.

With many victims (and accused) have been waiting on average 2 and a half years to go through the court process. However, since March 2019 when there were 568 victims awaiting justice, that figure has jumped up by 356% to 2,591 reported cases now awaiting trial.

Rape cases reported to the police in 2025 now  a spokeswoman for the Rape Crisis charity has said that some victims have had to wait as long as 8 years to get to court.

The main causes are cited as a concoction of a lack of specialist prosecution lawyers, judges and crumbling courts.

To read the full article in the Mail website click here.

Judicial Review Hearing Granted Over XL Bully Ban

The Guardian reported last weekend the news that a judicial review has been granted regarding the XL Bully dog ban.

Following the addition of the dogs to the Dangerous Dogs Act on October 31st last year following a speight of attacks – mainly on children – sparking much media attention.

From the beginning of the year, it has now become made illegal to rehome, sell or transfer ownership of the dogs in England and Wales. The dogs must also be muzzled and kept on a leash when in public.

Owners must go through the process of applying for a certification of exemption by the 31st of this month.

Campaigners have pushed for a judicial review into the ban, which has now been granted for the middle of this month, amid fears from animal rescue centres that they may be forced to put many of the dogs down.

You can read the full article on the Guardian website by clicking here.

Abuse Watchdog Warns Against Scrapping Shorter Sentences

Also in the Guardian last month, Nicole Jacobs, the domestic abuse commissioner, said ministers had not done enough to protect women from a decision to lift the pressures on overcrowded prisons by scrapping short prison sentences.

Jacobs claims that abusive men in England and Wales will walk free under the new Sentencing Bill – leaving their victims potentially exposed to increased risk.

Whilst back in November, following concerns raised by advocacy groups, the Government added an exemption where convicted individuals had breached a court order or could be shown to pose a significant risk of causing psychological or physical harm to another person, but Jacobs claimed in the Guardian that this wasn’t enough.

“It’s not that I think that prison is the best idea for everyone. But it is not the case that someone who is in for a kind of low-level sentence is not a very dangerous person to the victim. What it has taken to get the victim to a point where that has actually happened, most of the time that will be relying on a statement by the victim.

“You know, four out of five won’t ever report [domestic abuse] to the police. So when you take the one out of five who report to the police, and then you get to a fraction of them who actually get to the court, and if at that stage the court says: ‘Oh, we’ll give you a community sentence,’ that really just flies in the face of this kind of rhetoric by the government that domestic abuse is serious, that it is as serious as terrorism, organised crime. That is such a mismatch.”

The latest Ministry of Justice statistics show that 11,040 men were jailed for about 12 months or less for harassment, stalking and “revenge porn” last year. The fears are that under the new sentencing bill, significantly less than this may now face time in prison.

To read the article, click here.

Investigation after 2 die in women’s prison.

On the BBC website late last month was the report that an investigation was to be held following the death’s of two female prisoners at nearby HMP Styal prison.

Prisoners Laura Parry, 59, and Sarah Jackson, 46, died on 15 and 21 December respectively – although the two deaths are not connected.

You can read more about this in the article here.

And Finally – GMP Could Be Held in Contempt of Court if FOI Requests Aren’t Cleared.

The BBC reported in December that Greater Manchester Police could be held in contempt of court over a huge backlog of FOIs (Freedom of Information) requests.

The Information Commissioner’s Office (ICO) has issued the force with an enforcement notice for “repeated failures” in responding to requests. With some requests dating back as far as 2021, there are currently 850 requests outstanding.

GMP has been given 35 days to come up with a plan to clear the backlog by July this year or it could be held in contempt of court.

Ian Cosh, senior information risk owner at GMP, said the force will take the enforcement notice “incredibly seriously” and the action plan was already in motion to speed things up.

He said GMP was “committed to transparency”, and the plan includes new practices and processes as well as recruiting new staff.

To read the full article on the BBC website, click here. 

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