On Thursday 12th May, Dr Richard Martin was a panellist at the Criminal Bar Association’s Symposium on the Police, Crime, Sentencing and Courts Act 2022, chaired by Sir Alan Moses at The Central Criminal Court. The Act, which came into force in April 2022, contains a number of significant, wide-ranging and, in some instances, highly contested reforms across the criminal process.
To refer to just a few of these reforms, the Act overhauls changes made to pre-charge bail in 2017, establishes a statutory basis for the examination of digital devises in criminal investigations, expands well-established public order powers and associated offences (including public nuisance), increases starting points for certain types of homicide (notably for under 18-year-olds) and seeks to encourage the use of minimum sentences for repeat offenders.
Richard has written on the controversial protest provisions contained in the Act, as well as the further threats to the right to peaceful protest revived recently by the Government in the Queen’s Speech. Some of the preliminary findings of Richard’s ongoing empirical work on the impact of the statutory reform of pre-charge bail can also be found online, contained in the Home Office’s evidential review of pre-charge bail (January 2021).