In jurisprudence,double jeopardy is a procedural defence that prevents an accused person from being tried again on the same charges following an acquittal or conviction and in rare cases prosecutorial and/or judge misconduct in the same jurisdiction. Double jeopardy is a common concept in criminal law –in civil law,a similar concept is that of res judicata. The double jeopardy protection in criminal prosecutions bars only an identical prosecution for the same offence except when the defendant is a servicemember as the courts have ruled that the military courts are a separate sovereign therefore servicemembers can be held in two separate trials for the exact same charges;however,a different offence may be charged on identical evidence at a second trial. Res judicata protection is stronger –it precludes any causes of action or claims that arise from a previously litigated subject matter.
An indictment is a formal accusation that a person has committed a crime. In jurisdictions that use the concept of felonies,the most serious criminal offense is a felony;jurisdictions that do not use that concept often use that of an indictable offence,an offence that requires an indictment.
Greville Ewan Janner,Baron Janner of Braunstone,was a British politician,barrister and writer. He became a Labour Party Member of Parliament for Leicester in the 1970 general election as a last-minute candidate,succeeding his father. He was an MP until 1997,and then elevated to the House of Lords. Never a frontbencher,Janner was particularly known for his work on Select Committees;he chaired the Select Committee on Employment for a time. He was associated with a number of Jewish organisations including the Board of Deputies of British Jews,of which he was chairman from 1978 to 1984,and was later prominent in the field of education about the Holocaust.
Stephen Lawrence was an 18-year-old black British citizen from Plumstead,southeast London,who was murdered in a racially motivated attack while waiting for a bus on Well Hall Road,Eltham,on the evening of 22 April 1993. The case became a cause célèbre:its fallout included changes of attitudes on racism and the police,and to the law and police practice. It also led to the partial revocation of the rule against double jeopardy. Two of the perpetrators were convicted of murder on 3 January 2012.
The Crown Prosecution Service (CPS) is the principal public agency for conducting criminal prosecutions in England and Wales. It is headed by the Director of Public Prosecutions.
The Serious Fraud Office (SFO) is a non-ministerial government department of the Government of the United Kingdom that investigates and prosecutes serious or complex fraud and corruption in England,Wales and Northern Ireland. The SFO is accountable to the Attorney General for England and Wales,and was established by the Criminal Justice Act 1987,an Act of the Parliament of the United Kingdom.
A prosecutor is a legal representative of the prosecution in states with either the adversarial system,which is adopted in common law,or inquisitorial system,which is adopted in civil law. The prosecution is the legal party responsible for presenting the case in a criminal trial against the defendant,an individual accused of breaking the law. Typically,the prosecutor represents the state or the government in the case brought against the accused person.
In England and Wales,a magistrates' court is a lower court which hears matters relating to summary offences and some triable either-way matters. Some civil law issues are also decided here,notably family proceedings. In 2010,there were 320 magistrates' courts in England and Wales;by 2020,a decade later,164 of those had closed. The jurisdiction of magistrates' courts and rules governing them are set out in the Magistrates' Courts Act 1980.
The Criminal Justice Act 2003 is an Act of the Parliament of the United Kingdom. It is a wide-ranging measure introduced to modernise many areas of the criminal justice system in England and Wales and,to a lesser extent,in Scotland and Northern Ireland. Large portions of the act were repealed and replaced by the Sentencing Act 2020.
Kenneth Donald John Macdonald,Baron Macdonald of River Glaven,is a British lawyer and politician who served as Director of Public Prosecutions (DPP) of England and Wales from 2003 to 2008. In that office he was head of the Crown Prosecution Service. He was previously a recorder and defence barrister. He is a life peer in the House of Lords,where he sits as a crossbencher and was previously a Liberal Democrat. He was Warden of Wadham College,Oxford until 2021.
An offensive weapon is a tool made,adapted or intended for the purpose of inflicting physical injury upon another person.
Babar Ahmad is a British Muslim of Pakistani descent who spent eight years in prison without trial in the United Kingdom from 2004 to 2012 fighting extradition to the United States. The US accused him of providing material support to terrorism via a website that he set up in the UK in 1996 to publish stories about the conflicts in Bosnia and Chechnya,but which in 2000–2001 allowed two articles to be posted on the site offering support to the then Taliban government in Afghanistan. The US accepted that the website was operated from the UK but claimed jurisdiction because one of the servers hosting the website was located in the US. He fought a public eight-year legal battle,from prison,to be tried in Britain but the British Crown Prosecution Service concluded that there was "insufficient evidence to prosecute" him.
Azelle Rodney was a London man who was fatally injured by an armed officer of the Metropolitan Police on 30 April 2005. In July 2013,a public inquiry found that the Specialist Firearms Officer who fired the fatal shots,Anthony Long,had "no lawful justification" for killing Rodney. The case was referred to the Crown Prosecution Service (CPS) to determine whether a prosecution should be launched.
The Director of Public Prosecutions (DPP) is the head of the Crown Prosecution Service (CPS) and the third most senior public prosecutor in England and Wales,ranking after the attorney general and solicitor general.
Oluwashijibomi "Shiji" Lapite was a 34-year-old Nigerian asylum seeker who died in the back of a police van shortly after being detained by two officers from Stoke Newington police station in London.
Dorothy Ruth Bain is a Scottish advocate who has served as Lord Advocate since 2021. She is the second woman to hold the office after Lady Elish Angiolini KC. Bain previously served as the Principal Advocate Depute from 2009 to 2011,the first woman to hold the prosecutorial position in Scotland.
Lynette Deborah White was murdered in Cardiff,Wales. South Wales Police issued a photofit image of a bloodstained,white male seen in the vicinity at the time of the murder but were unable to trace the man. In November 1988,the police charged five men with White's murder,although none of the scientific evidence discovered at the crime scene could be linked to them. In November 1990,following what was then the longest murder trial in British history,three of the men were found guilty and sentenced to life imprisonment.
Dame Alison Margaret Saunders,is a British barrister and a former Director of Public Prosecutions. She was the first lawyer from within the Crown Prosecution Service and the second woman to hold the appointment. She was also the second holder of this office not to be a Queen's Counsel. She was previously the Chief Crown Prosecutor for CPS London. Her term of office ended on 31 October 2018. She is now a Partner at the Magic Circle law firm Linklaters.
Eleanor Poppy Miranda de Freitas was an English woman who committed suicide three days before the commencement of her trial for perverting the course of justice for allegedly making a false accusation of rape. Her death prompted a debate over whether prosecuting people accused of making a false accusation of rape could deter rape victims from reporting the crime,as well as whether it was appropriate to prosecute vulnerable individuals.
Christopher Kapessa was a Welsh boy who died at the age of 13 in the River Cynon on 1 July 2019. He was pushed from a height of 2.5 metres into the water and declared dead on the same day.
