LAWS

Labour has created more than 700 new offences in eight years. These include: obstruction of a fire hydrant, which became an offence in 2004 and carries a £500 fine. The “Provision of incorrect information by a plant breeder to the Controller of Plant Variety Rights” law, created by the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs (Defra) in the Plant Varieties Act 1997, carries a maximum £1,000 fine. The Department of Health has overseen the creation of 72 crimes, including several in the Human Tissue Act 2004.

Under the Nurses, Midwives and Health Visitors Act 1997, it became an offence “for a person other than a registered midwife or a registered medical practitioner to attend a woman in childbirth,” with a maximum penalty of £2,500. The Home Office oversaw the creation of 367 offences between 1997 and 2004, the Department for Culture, Media and Sport created 76, the Treasury 44, and the Office of the Deputy Prime Minister 62. (Source: Times Online)

The Lib Dem Home Affairs spokesman Nick Clegg revealed Labour has created 3,000 criminal offences in just nine years, one new crime for every day Mr Blair has been in power. In the 60 years between 1925 and 1985, there were only six Criminal Justice Acts but in the last nine years alone, the Home Office has added no fewer than 60 major pieces of legislation, involving thousands of pages and dozens of new crimes.

The taxman has been demanding new powers to arrest suspects, take fingerprints and raid businesses. Police want the right to bypass the courts and hand out summary justice to yobs, even though they can ban them from town centres already. And despite the new laws Ministers are still pressing for yet more anti-terror measures and the imposition of prohibitively expensive ID cards.

Yet in spite of all this violence is up, the detection rate is down, fear of crime is rising and the incompetence of the Home Office reduces justice to a farce. We no longer control our borders. We have no idea how many illegal migrants live here. We can't deport foreign rapists and murderers because the Government is obsessed with human rights. And we can't jail thieves and thugs because our prisons are so overcrowded.

New laws are not only irrelevant in all this, but can actually make matters worse. The Human Rights Act, for example, has frustrated every serious attempt to confront the terrorist threat. Instead of concentrating on the essentials like more prisons, more police on the beat, the better enforcement of existing law or allowing wiretap evidence in terrorist cases, for example, Ministers opt for new legislation, which allows them to be seen to be doing something (even if it doesn't work). (Source: This is London, Aug/06)

A legal principle which prevents people being tried for the same crime twice is being scrapped in England and Wales. The Court of Appeal can now quash an acquittal and order a retrial when "new and compelling" evidence is produced. Police plan to re-examine the case of 22-year-old Julie Hogg, who was murdered in a sex attack at her home in Billingham, Teesside, in November 1989.

Boyfriend Billy Dunlop was tried for the murder of the pizza delivery girl, but acquitted after the jury failed to reach a verdict on two separate occasions. The change will apply retrospectively, so someone could face a second trial if evidence such as DNA material, new witnesses or a confession came to light.

A Home Office spokesman said, "It is important the public should have full confidence in the ability of the criminal justice system to deliver justice. This can be undermined if it is not possible to convict offenders for very serious crimes where there is strong and viable evidence of their guilt."

Director of Public Prosecutions Ken Macdonald expects no more than "a handful" of cases to be brought a year. A Crown Prosecution Service spokeswoman said, "There has to be new evidence which was not available at the time of the original trial. Just because someone is reported to have confessed, in a book or a newspaper interview, does not necessarily mean that is evidence in a form we could use."

The National Crime Faculty believes there are 35 murder cases in which acquitted defendants could be re-investigated and new charges brought. The reforms, which also allow hearsay evidence to be admissible in court, come under the new Criminal Justice act. They apply to 30 serious crimes, including murder, rape, Class A drug offences and war crimes, but double jeopardy remains in force for lesser offences.

The Bar Council's former chairman Matthias Kelly QC said the law changes could "lead to prosecutions routinely seeking a second bite of the cherry, if a case flopped first time for good reason". And civil liberties groups also condemned the move, fearing the law could be used to persecute people and lead to miscarriages of justice. However, it will only be possible to retry an acquitted person once. The Stephen Lawrence racist murder case is another episode where detectives hope new evidence could come to light.

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