Law Weblog

New offence of encouraing or assisting suicide, hearsay rules amended and bail in murder cases limited to crown court

Tuesday 2 February 2010 at 2:40 am | In News | Post Comment

Encouraging or assisting suicide
Section 59 of the Coroners and Justice Act 2009 amends section 2 of the Suicide Act so as to replace the substantive offence of aiding, abetting, counselling or procuring suicide and the separate offence of attempting to commit the section 2 offence with a single offence cast in modernised language. The Criminal Attempts Act 1981 therefore no longer applies to section 2 of the 1961 Act. However, the scope of the law remains the same so these changes do not make liable to prosecution anyone who was not liable before.

Admissibility of evidence of previous complaints
Section 120 of the Criminal Justice Act 2003 is part of the code on hearsay evidence (that is, evidence not given orally by a witness during the trial) set out in that Act. It provides for the admission as evidence in criminal proceedings of certain previous statements of witnesses.

The requirement that the complaint was made as soon as could reasonably be expected after the alleged conduct, is removed, and a complaint or complaints will be admissible regardless of when they were made.
The purpose of the change is to help improve successful prosecution of sexual offences while ensuring that the defendant’s right to a fair trial is not undermined, although the change applies to all offences, not just sexual offences.

Bail and Risk of committing an offence causing injury – murder
The Bail Act 1976 is amended to provide that a defendant who is charged with murder may not be granted bail unless the court is of the opinion that there is no significant risk that, if released on bail, the defendant would commit an offence that would be likely to cause physical or mental injury to another person.

Bail decisions in murder cases to be made by Crown Court judge
This section provides that a defendant who is charged with murder (including one charged with murder and other offences) may not be granted bail except by a judge of the Crown Court. The power of magistrates to consider bail in murder cases is thus removed.

Circular here