Beltrami & Company Criminal Law & Glasgow Solicitors Blog

A joint inspection published by HM Inspectorates of Constabulary and the Crown Prosecution Service has found that the English criminal justice system has made progress in relation to the needs of rape victims although there is more to do.

Improvements must also be made to the way the police gather and analyse intelligence material to identify perpetrators of rape and more can be done to ensure that prosecutions are robust. 

The number of rapes recorded by the police has risen by 3,261 (26%) over the last three years. Criminal justice agencies attribute this partly to victims having more confidence that police and prosecutors will deal with offences sensitively and professionally.

HMIC and HMCPSI found that there is some evidence to support this: as previous reports have recognised while there is absolutely no room for complacency, the reactions of practitioners have become more attuned to the needs of victims, and to the problems associated with the investigation and prosecution of this serious offence. Investigative techniques and prosecutions must also improve to ensure that perpetrators of rape and the full extent of their offending are identified quickly and where appropriate prosecuted.

Undercover officers deployed into protest communities gathered intelligence which enabled the police to prevent acts of serious violence; but there was serious intrusion into the lives of others, and this risk needs to be better managed in future, a report published by Her Majesty’s Inspectorate of Constabulary (HMIC) has found.

HMIC reviewed the use of undercover officers by the National Public Order Intelligence Unit (NPOIU), which is now part of the National Domestic Extremism Unit (NDEU).

Undercover deployments are inherently risky: and those aimed at gathering intelligence (ie as carried out by the NDEU) were in some respects more so than those aimed at gathering criminal evidence (e.g. staging a drugs purchase on a street corner). For instance, they tend to last longer (sometimes years), partly because trust takes longer to grow; this increases the risk of intrusion into the lives of all members of the group among which they are deployed. In addition, there is not the same accountability to the courts as for evidence-gathering deployments.

HMIC found that as well as being more risky, NPOIU operations were not as well controlled as those of other units which deploy undercover officers on serious criminality.

HMIC is therefore making recommendations to improve the control of undercover officers deployed to tackle criminality associated with public order and domestic extremism. These improvements centre on three main areas:

System of control: Serious consideration should be given to establishing a stronger system of pre-authorisation for pre-planned, long-term intelligence development operations, in order to increase the level of accountability in future.

Definitions: HMIC recommends that a clearer definition of domestic extremism (which reflects the severity of crimes that might warrant this title) would help in judging whether an undercover deployment is an appropriate tactic to use.

Structure: HMIC recommends a clear separation between units that collect intelligence on public order generally and those that collect intelligence on extremism, in recognition of the fact that domestic extremism and public order policing are two different police functions.

The Crown Office has announced that it is to review the murder of Surjit Singh Chhokar, who was killed in 1998. Strathclyde Police have now been instructed to carry out further investigation into his murder under the Double Jeopardy legislation introduced in November last year.

The Double Jeopardy (Scotland) Act 2011 came into force in Scotland on 28th November 2011. Key elements of the Act include: