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The Judicial Office published guidance for self-represented litigants in the Interim Applications Court (High Court, QBD). A high number of litigants-in-person already appear in this court, and the volume of unrepresented claimants and respondents is expected to increase following recent cuts to legal aid. The guide, written by Mr Justice Foskett in consultation with the CAB and the Personal Support Unit in the RCJ, illustrates how to present documents and details the procedure, in addition to providing examples of skeleton arguments.
Part 36 offers have been troubling the High Court, with two cases involving attempts to overturn the costs consequences involved in accepting offers after the 21-day limit had expired by relying on last year’s ruling in SG v Hewitt, where the Court of Appeal justified a two-year delay in accepting an offer so the victim of a head injury could receive a better diagnosis of the long-term effects. Recent rulings on offers have been criticised as “encouraging satellite litigation about the acceptance of offers and the costs orders associated with acceptance of those offers”.
MI6 hacked into an al-Qaeda recruitment site and replaced bomb-making instructions with cupcake recipes. Anyone attempting to download a digital magazine from the site, which promised articles by Osama bin Laden and instructions on making pipe-bombs, was greeted with garbled code taken from a webpage of recipes for the “Best Cupcakes in America”.
The Met Police and NSPCC published a report into the allegations made against Jimmy Savile. “Giving Victims a Voice” outlined the findings of Operation Yewtree, a Met task force investigating sexual abuse. The report states that the police have concluded that:
“Jimmy Savile was one of the UK’s most prolific known sexual predators. Indeed the formal recording of allegations of crime on this scale is, to the best of our knowledge, unprecedented in the UK.”
It was made news that The Sun had overturned an injunction imposed by Bristol City Council that prevented it reporting details of a child protection scandal. Mr Justice Baker ruled that the council was “unjustified” in preventing a court’s criticisms of the social workers involved in the case from being made public:
“There is a clear public interest in facilitating an open discussion of the issues relating to child protection and fostering that arise in this case.
There is a danger that those who practise in the family justice system fail to give proper consideration to the Article 10 rights of the media. This must now cease.”
A teenager was handed a two year custodial sentence for rape, which was then revoked as the Recorder had sentenced him for the wrong crime. The judge was relying on an old indictment and was unaware that the charge had been changed.
A new exhibition on the historic Court of Claims opened in the Supreme Court, located by the café, and will run until the spring. The Court of Claims is an ancient court established to hear petitions regarding honorific services performed for a monarch on their coronation day. The first recorded sitting was in 1377 when the Court determined who would be involved with Richard II’s coronation ceremony. The Court’s most recent appearance was in 1952, where it heard petitions such as requests to carry various ceremonial objects at the coronation of Elizabeth II. Below is a photograph taken from the exhibition, which depicts the 1952 panel during a break in proceedings.