Hacking phones since 1999

I've just been alerted to a website called Hackgate.

Some guy claims to have told the media about phone-hacking back in 1999...

However, his story checks out!

The BBC's Dragon's Eye has a piece which confirms what he says [starts at 4:45] Tweet

... is alerted to planned changes to legal costs in criminal cases

I've previously covered the possible impact on the government's planned changes to legal aid and legal costs generally, in their proposed "Legal Aid, Sentencing and Punishment of Offenders Bill".

However, there is one section which - for some reason - I didn't actually mention, namely the possible impact of cl. 52 and Sch. 6. These specifically deal with criminal costs, i.e. the legal costs incurred by people found innocent of a crime.

The Observer today has an article (thanks to John Band on Twitter for alerting me to it) which covers the possible impact. The article says that Part 1 of Sch. 6 will penalise people for daring to be innocent of a crime.

As I've mentioned before, in my day job I deal with legal costs issues. The firm that I currently work for deals quite regularly with claims for costs resulting from failed prosecutions. So, based on what the Observer say, I should be worried about the possibly devastating impact that it could have on my employment.  However, I think that the article misinterprets the effect of the new Bill.

The current situation is that a person found innocent of a crime is entitled to their reasonable legal costs incurred in their defence, under s. 16 Prosecution of Offences Act 1985.

Amendments to section 16

The plan is to insert a few more sub-sections into s. 16, including this:

(6A) Where the court considers that there are circumstances that make it inappropriate for the accused to recover the full amount mentioned in subsection (6), a defendant’s costs order must be for the payment out of central funds of such lesser amount as the court considers just and reasonable.

This seem to have quite a significant impact. However, all claims for legal costs have to be reasonable, and in civil cases the Court already has powers to limit claims for costs to a certain percentage; or to certain issues in the case, etc, based on the facts of the case, under CPR 44.3. Reading the Government's Bill, I get the impression that it will lead to a similar situation in criminal cases.

While I can see why people would be alarmed at the proposals, I think that it would only have a real effect where, for example, the Defendant refused to co-operate with an investigation.

A new "section 16A"

There is also the proposed "s. 16A", which includes sub-section 1:

A defendant’s costs order may not require the payment out of central funds of an amount that includes an amount in respect of the accused’s legal costs, subject to the following provisions of this section

This seems to eliminate a big chunk of possible claims for legal costs, but it would not apply in a wide-range of cases due to sub-sections 3-6.

The only major area of worry is sub-section 9:

Where, in a defendant’s costs order, a court fixes an amount to be paid out of central funds that includes an amount in respect of legal costs incurred in proceedings in a court other than the Supreme Court, the latter amount must not exceed an amount specified by regulations made by the Lord Chancellor.

This brings in the concept of "summary assessment" of costs which civil cases have. This means that the Court deals with the innocent party's costs there and then, instead of ordering further hearings specifically dealing with costs. However, in civil cases, these are not subject to upper limits, as proposed in criminal cases. There is also a problem is that there is nothing to stop the Lord Chancellor's limits being unreasonable, i.e. ridiculously low.

Overall

In summary, I do not feel that the Observer have got the gist of the plans, but there are areas of concern in the proposals.

UPDATE: On the "summary assessment" point, I probably should point out that in Patent County Court cases, there are upper limits to what can be allowed for costs (CPR 45, section VII and the relevant Practice Direction), while in low value car-crash cases costs are calculated by a formula. Of course, there is a big difference between these situations and criminal cases. Tweet

Economic Girth

I saw this on Matt Yglesias yesterday I thought it deserved more wide-spread coverage:

The size of male organ is found to have an inverse U-shaped relationship with the level of GDP in 1985. It can alone explain over 15% of the variation in GDP. The GDP maximizing size is around 13.5 cm, and a collapse in economic development is identified as the size of male organ exceeds 16 cm... [I]t is also found to be more important determinant of GDP growth than country’s political regime type.

Of course, this raises a question of what policies you can create with this data.

Should the government enforce a policy of minimum and maximum penis sizes? Should circumcision be taken into account? Should penis pumps be available on the NHS?

Seriously though, I spy an Ig Noble prize for someone... Tweet

Data.gov.uk - massive expansion

Back in 2010 I mentioned that the government had launched a website of various databases which were free for public use.

Over a year later and the government plans to undertake a massive expansion of the system.

As before, I fully support their actions and hope that more is to come.

I look forward to seeing what people with more technical skills than I do with it.

PS. I should be offended by this comment... Tweet

Meets Autonomous Mind

On Friday I stumbled upon this post by Autonomous Mind on the News of the World phone-hacking.

We got into a discussion and it can be safely said that we had differing views. However, in the end we agreed that I would do a response piece.n

I was intending to go through it and critique it. To be honest I'm struggling to do so.

This may come across as an ad hominem, but, frankly, the entire consists of nothing more than a long rant of alleged left-wing bias by the BBC, ITV and C4 - but not Channel 5 - and the silencing of right-wing views, and that the only reason the Guardian has been investigating phone-hacking is to stop Murdoch taking full control of Sky TV.

It should be noted that the article came out on 7th July, so it's possible the author was merely waiting for more to appear. However, the follow-up article would argue against this... Tweet

The new #singhBCA?

Yesterday, I came across what appears to be another ludicrous libel lawsuit in the UK.

Vaughan Jones is being sued for a book review he did in September 2010 of a book called "The Attempted Murder of God" in which he called the author a creationist. No, really!

Jones has started a blog to cover events: Me (an Others) vs Creationist. He's also on Twitter: @vaughanjones82.

It's at a very early stage - proceedings were only served a few days ago - so there isn't much to say about the case so far.

Libel isn't my area of law, but if he wins and wants to claim his legal costs, Jones knows where to find me.

I'll be keeping an eye out for it and you should do too. Tweet

The impact of NOTW being shut down

So the News of the World has been sacrificed to save Rebekah Brooks et al.

Some people think that this will give them the abaility to liquidate ex-NOTW assets in order to delete information.

I'm not sure that it's as simple as that.

As the comments on that article point out, it would depend on who legally owns the NOTW and its property.

I don't know how NOTW or News International organise their corporate structure, but it's worth noting that - from a quick search on BAILII - that any legal case involving NOTW is dealt with by News Group Ltd., the NOTW's publishers.

News Group Ltd. will remain even after the NOTW is closed down. Therefore, presumably, the assets would be in their name, not in a NOTW-specific company,- should one exist - and would not be up for liquidation.

David Allen Green comes to a similar view in relation to the criminal proceedings.

UPDATE: David Allen Green has a further post going into more detail. Tweet