Category: Liverpool Crown Court

After changes in 2014 allowing filming of local government meetings what are the safeguards proposed on filming and broadcast of judicial sentencing remarks in England and Wales?

After changes in 2014 allowing filming of local government meetings what are the safeguards proposed on filming and broadcast of judicial sentencing remarks in England and Wales?

After changes in 2014 allowing filming of local government meetings what are the safeguards proposed on filming and broadcast of judicial sentencing remarks in England and Wales?

                                    

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Footage of Liverpool City Council conferring the appointment of Honorary Recorder on His Honour Judge Menary QC 22nd May 2019

Mayor Joe Anderson nominating Honorary Recorder of Liverpool May 2019 Liverpool City Council
Mayor Joe Anderson nominating Honorary Recorder of Liverpool May 2019 Liverpool City Council

By John Brace – Local Government Editor
and
Leonora Brace – Criminal Justice Correspondent

After a pilot of not for broadcast filming of sentencing remarks (which included Liverpool Crown Court) draft legislation regarding the filming and broadcasting of sentencing remarks has been laid as draft legislation by the Lord Chancellor (with the agreement of the Lord Chief Justice).
Continue reading “After changes in 2014 allowing filming of local government meetings what are the safeguards proposed on filming and broadcast of judicial sentencing remarks in England and Wales?”

Letter from the Wirral – audio podcast – episode #1 New Ferry Trial 13th January 2019

Letter from the Wirral – audio podcast – episode #1 New Ferry Trial 13th January 2019

Letter from the Wirral – audio podcast – episode #1 New Ferry Trial 13th January 2019

                                 

Queen Elizabeth II Law Courts (Liverpool Crown Court), Derby Square, Liverpool, L2 1XA (5th January 2019)
Queen Elizabeth II Law Courts (Liverpool Crown Court), Derby Square, Liverpool, L2 1XA (5th January 2019)

Below is a transcript of a new audio series I’m starting this year, the topic of our first one is a conversation between myself and our criminal justice correspondent about the trial last week.

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Letter from the Wirral – audio podcast – episode #1 New Ferry Trial 13th January 2019

The focus on a criminal justice case (the first two days of the trial of what happened in New Ferry) came about as a result of the Bureau of Investigative Journalism’s Bureau Local project and specifically the open newsroom last year on “What are the challenges with accessing court information and reporting on them?” as I realised that there needed to be a field test to understand things better.

I did as a journalist challenge one of the restricted reporting orders on this listing for this case (one of which has now been removed as it didn’t exist and was a clerical error). The official and extremely polite response back was I quote, “it was a clerical error, the reporting restrictions in the case are as per the order handed to you yesterday. Thank you for taking the time to point out this error to the Court.”
Continue reading “Letter from the Wirral – audio podcast – episode #1 New Ferry Trial 13th January 2019”

What happened on the 2nd day of the New Ferry Explosion Trial?

What happened on the 2nd day of the New Ferry Explosion Trial?

What happened on the 2nd day of the New Ferry Explosion Trial?

                                          

Queen Elizabeth II Law Courts (Liverpool Crown Court), Derby Square, Liverpool, L2 1XA (5th January 2019)
Queen Elizabeth II Law Courts (Liverpool Crown Court), Derby Square, Liverpool, L2 1XA (5th January 2019)

This report of a criminal trial in the Liverpool Crown Court continues from What happened on the 1st day of the New Ferry Explosion Trial?

The reporting restrictions I referred to in my report on the first day linked to above mean I can only report on what happened after around 3.15 pm. The following may be of interest to those ever called for jury service wondering what happens.
Continue reading “What happened on the 2nd day of the New Ferry Explosion Trial?”

What happened on the 1st day of the New Ferry Explosion Trial?

What happened on the 1st day of the New Ferry Explosion Trial?

What happened on the 1st day of the New Ferry Explosion Trial?

                                          

Queen Elizabeth II Law Courts (Liverpool Crown Court), Derby Square, Liverpool, L2 1XA (5th January 2019)
Queen Elizabeth II Law Courts (Liverpool Crown Court), Derby Square, Liverpool, L2 1XA (5th January 2019)

The first day of the trial about an explosion in New Ferry in March 2017 of two defendants started this morning in Court 5-2 on the 5th floor of the Liverpool Crown Court. Due to its high profile nature all the seats in the public gallery were full and the Usher had to find seats elsewhere in the court room for extra people.

The jury wasn’t present for a discussion between Judge Menary QC and the representatives for both defendants as to how long the jury should be allowed to complete the jury questionnaires. The trial is expected to last up to four weeks.

Judge Menary QC did agree an order with the parties for reporting restrictions (specifically delayed reporting) on some aspects of the case. Despite asking the Liverpool Crown Court staff for a copy of this reporting restriction order when the morning’s hearing concluded, at the time of writing the staff have been unable to provide a copy and insisted I email (I have since received an electronic copy this afternoon and made this edit before publication).

The jury are expected to be sworn in possibly tomorrow afternoon and some material in the bundles will be changed (one reason given was to correct an incorrect address).

There will be no sitting on Friday due to a Regional Sentencing Seminar. Defendant Pascal G Blasio was re-bailed on the condition that he appear again for tomorrow’s hearing.

Due to the ongoing nature of the trial comments are turned off.

A report on day 2 can be read at What happened on the 2nd day of the New Ferry Explosion Trial?

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EXCLUSIVE: 155 invoices paid by Wirral Council in 2013/14 for legal services, external audit, physiotherapy and psychological assessments

EXCLUSIVE: 155 invoices paid by Wirral Council in 2013/14 for legal services, external audit, physiotherapy and psychological assessments

EXCLUSIVE: 155 invoices paid by Wirral Council in 2013/14 for legal services, external audit, physiotherapy and psychological assessments

                                                              

Below are 155 of the invoices I requested during the 2013/14 audit. They range from invoices to the Council’s external auditor Grant Thornton UK LLP, criminal work, a couple of judicial reviews, appealing an ICO decision notice to the First Tier Tribunal (Information Rights) as well as a lot of times Wirral Council have taken parents to court about their children. Some of these invoices I’ve previously written about on this blog, such as about the invoice about appealing the ICO decision notice. Turns out now I look at it more carefully there was a further invoice for £1,008 from February 2014 in that matter too.

Some of the others I’ve already on the blog as I received them in August 2014. However I didn’t publish them in August because I’ve had to go through a process of blacking out all the names (and partial names) of children and parents.

Added in green to many invoices are the representative (where known) from the list of payments in 2013/14 greater than £500. I’ve also added back in (on some) text which has been obscured by information blacked out on double-sided pages and bled through.

There is an index to all 155 invoices that can be downloaded here. I’ve tried to use the following file format when naming each file “Wirral Council invoice” followed by representative/organisation, amount, date, page number where there are multiple pages for the same invoice followed by invoice number.

Invoices 73 & 74 aren’t published here as they were cancelled and replaced by invoices 75 & 76. There is another batch of invoices I have yet to scan in, which is a mix of invoices for legal services and other general invoices. Below you should find all 155 invoices.