Archive for the ‘Criminal Offences’ Category

My Son or Daughter Has Been Arrested – What Should I Do?

Posted on: February 24th, 2015 by steve

My Son or Daughter Has Been Arrested – What Should I Do?

We receive many telephone calls from anxious parents whose son or daughter has been arrested in relation to a criminal offence.

From criminal damage to sexual assault, burglary to drug offences, it is often the worried parents or older siblings who contact us looking for advice.

How Old Is Your Child?

The first question has to be how old your child is.

All children under 17 are entitled to have an appropriate adult attend the police station with them. They are also entitled to have a criminal solicitor present to represent them within the police station.

As a parent, you can arrange for a criminal solicitor from Forrest Williams to be called on their behalf – even if your son or daughter has not requested this.

Arrange police station representation now: call us on 01623 397200

If your child is 17 or over, things are slightly different. They are considered to be an adult and will not be able to have an appropriate adult attend the police station, unless they are classed as being vulnerable for a reason other than age – learning difficulties, for example.

They will, however, still be entitled to representation at the police station by a criminal solicitor.

What Should I Do To Help Them?

In our experience, while a child who is 17 or over may be classed as an adult in legal terms, they are often not prepared to handle a criminal case and rely heavily on parents or other relatives to make arrangements on their behalf and support them through the process.

We are very used to working with decent, hard working families who have raised their children well. We know that to have your child charged with a criminal offence is incredibly worrying, and we take pride in supporting families through the whole process.

In cases where we are contacted by a concerned parent or relative, we encourage whole family involvement throughout the case. While always respecting the wishes of the person charged with the offence, as our client, we welcome full family conferences, and frequently send all correspondence to both the person charged and their parents.

We are parents and, simply put, we prepare cases for young people exactly as we would prepare our own children’s cases.

For an initial consultation to discuss your son or daughter’s case, call one of our dedicated case workers now on 01623 397200.

Prolific and Priority Offenders Report Recommendations

Posted on: February 16th, 2015 by steve

Policy Exchange has published a new report focused on Prolific and Priority Offenders entitled ‘Swift and Certain. A New Paradigm For Criminal Justice’.

The report makes recommendations for allowing the criminal justice system to be swift, certain and proportionate.

Recommendations include:

Conditional Behaviour Orders – the proposal of a new Conditional Behaviour Order (CBO) as a new requirement for Community Orders, with punitive responses to non-compliance. The Conditional Behaviour Order would specify particular behavioural requirements including drug testing, alcohol monitoring or GPS tagging and would specify corresponding sanctions for non-compliance.
Breaches of Community Orders – the report recommends that breaches of Community Orders are dealt with in a way that is much more focused on prolific and priority offenders, requiring proceedings to be brought within 24 hours to specialist courts and recommending curfew orders or custody as sanctions.
Suspended Sentence Orders – the report recommends that Suspended Sentence Orders are dealt with by considering the future behaviour of the offender and with an increased monitoring, with any breaches resulting in proceedings within 24 hours.
Police Courts – the report recommends the introduction of new police courts, whereby magistrates sit in or near police stations to deal with low-level guilty pleas where appropriate, allowing cases to be heard on the spot without being sent to court.
Fast track of prolific and priority offenders – the report suggests that prolific or priority offenders should be dealt with by specific magistrates or District Judges and should be sentenced within 24 hours of being charged when they will plead guilty.

These recommendations raise many concerns relating to the need for a person accused of an offence to obtain accurate, independent legal advice.

We are certain that sentencing people who may believe they should plead guilty in such a short timescale will see many people convicted of crimes they should never have pleaded guilty to.

We speak to many people who are charged with offences and are, a few days later, still processing what has happened and only just feeling able to reach out for legal advice.

If you are being charged with a criminal offence, contact our team now for a free initial consultation on 01623 397200.

Not Guilty Verdict For Criminal Damage Case

Posted on: January 27th, 2015 by steve

WRITTEN BY JULIA COFFIN, PARALEGAL

My client is a young man that had been involved in an altercation with a group of youths and charged with Criminal Damage. His mother called me shortly before Christmas extremely frustrated at the lack of progress she was experiencing from the Legal Aid Solicitor they had been working with up until that point. Of course I reassured her that we could help her son, and we took over the case.

Our client is a young man of good character with no previous convictions, he is a student with excellent grades and offers from three Universities to study Business. He was chosen to be peer support at school as well as Captain of the School Sports Team, Rugby Team and a Prefect.

The client had been travelling in a cab with five friends and an incident occurred whereby the cab driver was assaulted by one of the group and a window was broken by another. My client was identified as being present at the scene and subsequently charged with Criminal Damage.

When I interviewed the client on the telephone he came across as a very polite young man, and I couldn’t reconcile the idea of the person I was speaking to causing criminal damage in a fit of youthful exuberance – he just didn’t come across that way to me.

When I reviewed the file, the evidence against him was extremely thin, it appeared that he had been singled out as he had been positively identified as being present, which he had never disputed, however he had not been involved in the fracas and was merely present.

We approached the CPS and asked them to review the case due to a lack of evidence, which was denied and the matter proceeded to trial.

Our client was represented by one of our experienced Barristers from our London Chambers and we secured a verdict of Not Guilty – which wasn’t entirely surprising given the very weak case against him.

The Barrister’s account of the courtroom proceedings was that the prosecutor approached the case as if it were a murder trial, shouting at our client – who is only 18 years old – and being selective in the evidence she presented, deliberately withholding parts of the evidence that would undermine their case and assist our defence case. The prosecutor was described as being horrible and unprofessional and the family are considering lodging a formal complaint about her conduct and behaviour.

We secured an excellent and well deserved result for our client, a young man who no longer faces the possibility of a criminal record for something he wasn’t involved with.

We stayed in constant contact with our client’s parents at all stages throughout the case preparations and lead up to the trial, reassuring them at every point as they were very worried about their son and what might happen. I received a text from them after the trial ended saying that they couldn’t thank me enough, and that the Barrister was fantastic!

If you are being charged with, or investigated for, criminal damage, call me now for a free initial consultation on 01623 397200.

Criminal Defence Blog

Archive for the ‘Criminal Offences’ Category

My Son or Daughter Has Been Arrested – What Should I Do?

Prolific and Priority Offenders Report Recommendations

Not Guilty Verdict For Criminal Damage Case

WRITTEN BY JULIA COFFIN, PARALEGAL

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