In this post, David Lorimer (PhD candidate) analyses a new Northern Irish report into reforming the law on serious sexual offences. Lorimer argues what is law for the accused should be law for the complainer.
The latest Gillen Report to the Criminal Justice Board on reform of the law on serious…
Should Gavin Williamson, former defence secretary, be prosecuted under the Official Secrets Act for leaking confidential information from the National Security Council? Or was he wrongly found guilty of leaking by a ‘kangaroo court’, as he has claimed?
This story – reported by the BBC here – brings together a range of important legal…
On the 28 November 2018, The Faculty of Advocates hosted a debate on independent legal representation (ILR) for complainers in rape trials. This was informed to some extent (as indeed is this blog) by the excellent interim report by Sir John Gillen on the law and procedures relating to serious…
This article analyses the probabilities of success for criminal cases brought to civil court. It briefly examines potentially influential factors such as corroboration and criminal intent, and the implications of cases like Coxen and Goodwillie.
Recent work relating hung jury findings to Scotland’s not proven votes and verdicts has given rise to the hypothesis that…
University of Aberdeen PhD candidate David Lorimer applies a quantitatively analytical approach to criminal law. He has written previously on jury analysis and the admissibility of prejudicial evidence (with a journal paper currently under peer review). The attached poster indicates some of the areas to which his quantitative methodology has…
I have just had the pleasure of having an article published in in Issue 4 of the 2017 Juridical Review, the law journal of the Scottish Universities.
The article focuses on recent controversy surrounding some Crown Office and Procurator Fiscal Service (COPFS) decisions not to proceed to prosecution in cases of…
As an academic opposed to wildlife crime and with no ‘huntin/shootin/fishin’ interests (or indeed abilities) to declare, I have penned this article as a follow up response to my colleague Professor Peter Duff’s recent contribution to this blog relating to the correctness of recent Crown Office and Procurator Fiscal Service…
Non-lawyers might be bewildered by the recent decisions of the Crown Office and Procurator Fiscal Service (COPFS) not to proceed with prosecution in a series of cases where the RSPB has video footage of employees of large estates setting traps for or killing protected birds of prey (as reported by…
The legal question of how to treat probative information generated or stored in electronic form has a relatively short history, but is becoming increasingly significant. Interest in the new possibilities and challenges regarding the introduction of electronic evidence at trial is growing, awareness is spreading…
