The Key Cases of 2023

The Key Cases of 2023

R (Marandi) v Westminster Magistrates’ Court [2023] 2 Cr App R 15

The case concerned an application for anonymity in forfeiture proceedings by a person who was neither party to nor a witness in those proceedings. The court also set out the requirements regarding notice, evidence in support, content of the order etc

ADDED Thursday 7th March 2024

Birmingham City Council v Jones [2023] 3 WLR 343

The case concerned the standard of proof to be applied on applications for so-called 'gang injunctions', which aim to break down the gang culture, prevent gang-related violence from escalating and protect children from being drawn into serious crime.

ADDED Tuesday 5th March 2024

R v Wu (Susan) [2023] 2 Cr App R 3

Did the offence of 'unlawful eviction' under the Protection from Eviction Act 1977 require the tenant to have been put out or kept out of physical occupation? Did 'unlawful harassment' require a course of conduct and acts rather than mere omissions?

ADDED Monday 11th March 2024

R (Officer W80) v Director General of the Independent Office for Police Conduct [2023] 1 WLR 2300

The case arose from a fatal shooting by a police firearms specialist in the honest but mistaken belief that the suspect was armed. Was the test for self-defence in police disciplinary proceedings to be that applied in the civil law or the criminal law?

ADDED Friday 8th March 2024

Hicks (Deborah) v Director of Public Prosecutions [2023] 2 Cr App R 12

The case arose from a confrontation between a COVID sceptic and healthcare professionals. It concerned the boundary between freedom of expression and the offence of causing harassment, alarm or distress through threatening or abusive words or behaviour.

ADDED Wednesday 5th March 2024

R v Hernandez (Jordan) [2024] 1 Cr App R 4

The case concerned the civic duty to perform jury service, the ‘fair-minded observer’ test in Porter v McGill [2002] AC 357 and the capacity of prospective jurors to shed their preconceived notions and to take and abide by their oaths and affirmations.

ADDED Monday 4th March 2024

Newcastle United Football Company Ltd v Commissioners for His Majesty’s Revenue & Customs [2024] STC 73

The case concerned HMRC's powers to retain hard copies of documents and digital images made in the course of a criminal investigation once that investigation is over and then to share such material with their colleagues conducting civil tax inquiries.

ADDED Thursday 22nd February 2024

R (Chapter 4 Corp t/a Supreme) v Southwark Crown Court [2023] Costs LR 897

The case concerned the payment of a private prosecutor’s costs from central funds, the jurisdiction of the Crown Court to amend such an order other than under the slip rule, and the costs of JR proceedings where the claimant was guilty of culpable failings.

ADDED Wednesday 21st February 2024

R v Trowland (Morgan) [2024] 1 Cr App R (S) 14

The case concerned appeals against sentence by two 'Just Stop Oil' protestors, who had caused large-scale disruption when they climbed the Queen Elizabeth II bridge at the Dartford/Thurrock Thames crossing and refused to budge for the next 36 hours.

ADDED Friday 16th February 2024

R v Malkinson (Andrew) [2023] EWCA Crim 954

This involved a high-profile miscarriage of justice, arising from unreliable identification evidence. Andrew Malkinson spent 17 years in prison protesting his innocence and was finally cleared as a result of developments in the science of DNA analysis.

ADDED Wednesday 14th February 2024

R v Ali (Arie) [2023] 2 Cr App R (S) 25

The case concerned the approach to be taken to the imposition of custodial sentences during times of prison overcrowding. That factor could be taken into account by a sentencing judge when deciding whether a sentence of imprisonment should be suspended.

ADDED Tuesday 13th February 2024