Northpod Law & UKCLB Podcasts
25 episodes - English - Latest episode: about 8 years ago -A podcast by practising barristers in Manchester, England.
This show presents updates on legal matters in the public eye and provides a useful update tool for those in the justice system as well as non-lawyers who want to hear the legal reality of often mis-reported justice matters.
Homepage Apple Podcasts Google Podcasts Overcast Castro Pocket Casts RSS feed
Episodes
The Growing Prevalence of Prevalence - 25/05/16
May 26, 2016 20:48It's a case law episode for this Bite, which you can listen to right here. First, R v Bondzie. Ever wondered why the Crown has taken to serving a statement that just tells you that drug dealing is bad? Here's why they do it; what effect it could have on sentence; what they need to do to give it an effect and why their efforts to date have been generally pointless and probably damaging to their own aims. Then two quickies: R v Bala, which upholds marriage in all its forms and R v Hussain, ...
Sexual Communications - 17/05/16
May 17, 2016 19:39Listen to this week's show right here. This week, Kirstin examines the little heard of s.67 of the Serious Crime Act 2015 which creates a new offence of sexual communication with a child. What is it? What does it cover? What does the Crown have to prove? What's the maximum sentence? And the perennial Northpod Law favourite, "Couldn't you just use the offences already on the statute books?" Actually, that last one might have a bit of a surprising answer - although no doubt Ben w...
Defending Rob Titchner - 06/05/16
May 09, 2016 11:06This week Kirstin's going through s.76 Serious Crime Act 2015. It deals with coercive control - or domestic violence that's not that physical. We use the scandalous plot of "The Archers" to briefly explain what can make up the background to these new cases. Take a listen right here. Then we go through the section to look at who can and can't be guilty of the offence and where the problems might lie in making it stick where there are no other offences. Is this just a way of getting 5 ye...
Property is Theft - 25/04/16
April 25, 2016 22:32In this week's show, we take a look at the Sentencing Council's recent Theft Offences guideline. Take a listen right here. Theft is probably the most common criminal offence that appears before the courts. Of course, there are several types of theft and attitudes towards shoplifting will be rather different than attitudes towards theft from the person. Not just that but the courts of England and Wales arguably need to have their sentencing practices standardised so that justice is the sam...
Done Over By Do-Overs? - 17/04/16
April 17, 2016 20:56In this week's show, we take a look at what happens when juries cannot reach a verdict. Take a listen right here. Many people, especially defendants, are quite horrified when they find out that the prosecution can decide whether it wants to have not just a second attempt but, sometimes, a third attempt! In this episode, we consider what the "sometimes" above actually means. Let us know if you like the new "Bites" format (shorter and with less wine and cake) or if you are longing for a re...
Butting Heads With Beavis - 10/04/16
April 10, 2016 18:48You can listen to this week's show right here. We have been away for an absolute eternity but the wait is over! This week, we are looking at the Supreme Court decision in ParkingEye v Beavis (2015) This is a decision that will impact on most motorists at some point in their life and will have effects in contract law as it amends a fundamental doctrine of English law. So, whether you are listening because you are looking into an unfair parking ticket or whether you are listening because y...
Series Break - 7th November 2014
November 07, 2014 20:50Dear Listeners of Northpod Law and of UK Criminal Law Blog Podcast From time to time, the fates conspire against us all and the absence of our last show of the series and the delay in the start of UKCLBP (as I am now calling it) is testament to this. We don't generally take a series break as you know but we need one at the moment. We have had people moving jobs, I have been beset with Whooping Cough (I know! How very 19th Century of me to get that as an adult) and we think that one of o...
S14E04 - Running Late, Sounding Adequate
October 19, 2014 18:17The episode that might never have happened is finally here. You can listen right here. What with Ben being incapacitated, Kirstin being snowed-under and Jonathan having been abducted by aliens (some of this may not be true), a big dent has been made on our otherwise reliable schedule. We apologise unreservedly. In this week's show, we have a look at R v Creathorne - an interesting case in which the question of how much credit ought to be given for a plea of guilty where the CPS hasn't ha...
S14E03 - Rights and Wrong'uns
October 05, 2014 17:24You can listen to this week's show right here. This week's show is about the Tory plan to abolish the Human Rights Act and to put England and Wales (though not Scotland or NI, of course) outside of the direct constraints of International Human Rights law. It's a good job that Ben is still barely croaking otherwise this would no doubt have been an angry rant full of vitriol about our Home Secretary and Lord Chancellor. Surely Kirstin will be far more calm about it... Of course, you might w...
S14E02 - Corruption
September 27, 2014 14:21With Ben still suffering from the Dreaded Lurgy and Jonathan being AWOL, Kirstin is left to man the battlements of Northpod Towers this week. Have a listen right here. With all that is going in at the MoJ (for whom it has not been a good week!), we couldn't let that go by without a mention. But before we get to that, the rather interesting case of Serious Fraud Office v Miltiades Papachristos and Dennis Kerrison. This case concerns a legal question about amending indictments and contains...
S14E01 - Power to the Victim
September 19, 2014 16:48You can listen here! This week we scrabble around in the mud to bring you a frankly minimal offering of law. It may have been the silly season but the law has (at least in this country) remained aloof and above such matters. Sadly this show was recorded before the Lord Chancellor was defeated in the High Court by criminal solicitors using judicial review - a system Grayling would like to seee abolished - and now we can see why. He acted illegally. That didn't stop his press office twee...
S13E06 - Tea and Cake
July 31, 2014 23:01Hear this week's show right here. This is a silly episode to end series 13. We are doing cake, bourbon and tea. Yep, we are covering rulings of the tax tribunal and the Advertising Standards Agency. You might think that this would be a bit dry but no. We go to town on Tunnocks and get passionate about pyramids. Please don't expect the usual cutting analysis of heavy-weight appeal decisions. Instead, expect munching and slurping. And some chortling. Normal service will be resumed...
S13E05 - The VC Factor
July 24, 2014 23:01Listen to this week's show right here. In a CBA vice-chair election special, we are joined by the two candidates, Mark Fenhalls QC and Paul Keleher QC. There was no bloodshed in this head-to-head but we think you'll want to hear what both candidates have to say on the wide-ranging topics up for discussion. We cover everything from "The Deal" to the future use of direct action; from how to stop the slide back into the Bar being for the white, male, middle-class to what the future holds for...
S13E04 - Immigration and Impertinence
July 17, 2014 23:01Listen to this week's show right here. We have swapped Kirstin for Jonathan this week as we take on what must be the two biggest immigration cases of the year, MM and PLP vs Grayling - not their official titles! These cases may be weighty immigration cases but they are important far more broadly as they involve the relationship between the State, Europe and private individuals. They also demonstrate that politics may be getting in the way of good law-making, not for the first time. Foll...
S13E03 - Expert Evidence, Unreliable Evidence and Fresh Evidence
July 10, 2014 23:01Listen to this week's show right here. We have talked about expert witnesses many times over the past 12 series but we have seldom explored exactly what an "expert witness" is, what they do, to whom they are accountable, how they are regulated and how they come to be involved in cases. This week, we fix that by catching-up with Glen Siddall of Aequitas Forensics, Manchester. Glen is an expert in digital forensics and he is instructed by "both sides" in criminal proceedings. We ask him a...
S13E02 - Historic Sexual Offences
July 05, 2014 12:38Have a listen to this week's show right here. In the light of the recent verdicts and sentence in Rolph Harris' case, Kirstin goes through the Sexual Offences Act 1956, looking at what offences are contained in it and how amendments have affected the law. Given that we are on the subject of how the law changes over the years and that retrospective legislation is dangerous territory, we thought it would be worthwhile to take a peek at the decision of the High Court in Reilly (No.2) as the G...
S13E01 - Let's Look At That Again
June 26, 2014 23:01We are back for Series 13 (!) of the podcast and we are raring to go with some law this week. Many thanks to the good folks at UK Criminal Law Blog Podcast and thanks again to Lyndon Harris for having both Kirstin and Ben on this series. As always, you can hear this week's show by clicking here. Also, PLEASE RATE/REVIEW US: wherever you subscribe, please take two seconds as we start this series, to give us some stars and a few kind words. We'd be e'er so obliged. It helps us get up t...
S12E06 - The Results Are In...
May 08, 2014 23:01The cake and bourbon show is upon us again. Our 72nd episode can be heard right here. In this week's show, we take a look at Sir Bill Jeffrey's review of independent criminal advocacy in England and Wales. It may be reopening an old front in the war between barristers and HCAs but the conclusions give considerable grounds for taking stock of the effects of all the reforms over the last 10 years. They also present a potentially chilling view of the future for anyone who fears change. F...
S12E05 - The Schadenfreude of Rampant State Failure
May 01, 2014 23:44It's NorthPod Law 4 - MoJ and the Home Office 0 as (oh dear) Kirstin Beswick and Jonathan Holt have a lot of fun at the expense of those two ministries - you can Listen Here. First up is the total collapse of a five-handed serious fraud involving the exploitation of members of the public, including rather vulnerable people. And why? Well, because as the MoJ has discovered that if you pay peanuts, sometimes you can't even get monkeys. It doesn't help does it, Mr Grayling, when it's the P...
S12E04 - All Change! No Change!
April 25, 2014 18:08On this week's show, which you can listen to by clicking these very words, Ben and Kirstin talk their way through the so-called "revolution" in the family courts. It is something of an oddity that reforms that actually do very little in terms of changing the status quo and, instead, assume that lawyers have been doing it wrong for all of this time, should be heralded as a "revolution" by a political judge. Check out the government hype in the links below. Not content with having a pop at t...
S12E03 - A Rare Thing Indeed!
April 17, 2014 23:01On this week's show, which you can hear by clicking here, we are joined by lap-dancer-turned-law-student, Vanessa Knowles to talk about how a law student making good money from being very visible online might encounter problems in a future career. It turns out things are not as bleak as you might think. We talk about how not to deal with the Court of Appeal when it comes to having a pop at a client's previous lawyers and how the Court uses its rarely-wielded power to dismiss a case withou...
S12E02 - The New Way(a)
April 10, 2014 23:01The Way(a) to listen is to click here! Enough with the awful title and dreadful pun - is it a pun? This week we transport you to the sunny shores of Cape Town via a fascinating interview with barrister David Pojur, telling us all about the legal system that's currently trying Oscar Pistorius. We come closer to home although no further from scandalous trials to look at the Nigel Evans trial in Preston. Ben's promised link to the Code for Crown Prosecutors is here. Kirstin discusses Re G...
S12E01 - Proposals
April 04, 2014 07:22Listen Here Welcome back. It's the glorious Twelfth! In week one, we talk to Family Barrister Joe Lynch about the proposed changes to the child cruelty laws to add in emotional abuse. Should it be done? Can it be done? How's it done in the rest of the world? The Action for Children report can be found here We exclusively reveal how much the Lord Chancellor's car costs - STOP PRESS!! And we confuse you completely with the proposed theft sentencing guidelines - don't forget to engage...
S11E06 - Between The Rock and a Hard Place
February 14, 2014 00:20Listen to this week's show here. On this week's show, John Cooper QC joins our roving reporter, Keith Jones in Gibraltar to talk about the law and the Bar in one of Britain's far-flung outposts. A little closer to home, we look at what happens when you cough to something whilst in custody and when that sort of confession will not be allowed in to evidence. We take a glance over fracking near Northpod Towers and celebs on trial near our local cobbles. Also, a look at sentencing for assist...
S11E05 - Words, Words, Words
February 07, 2014 00:01This week we carry on the tradition of the series in that we're a member of the usual team short. It's Ben on this occasion. He'll be back next week, I'm sure. Listen Here Matters under consideration are – what knowingly means when it comes to the environment; when a crime under the Dangerous Dogs Act is not a crime at all (and it's not the same as the last one); when parking is not parking and when a solicitor can hang on to papers and when he has to pass them on. It's all very c...