Afternoon summary
Downing Street has said it had not ruled out beefing up the inquiry into the murders committed by Lucy Letby, and the circumstances behind them, by making it statutory. The prime minister’s spokesperson made this clear at a briefing for journalists only days after the Department of Health and Social Care said it wanted the inquiry to be non-statutory because it thought that would be more appropriate. (See 12.25pm.)
Rishi Sunak has confirmed that the government wants to change the law to ensure defendants have to be in court to hear their sentencing, and Keir Starmer has said this should happen too. (See 9.42am and 10.41am.) But legal experts question how this can be achieved in practice. (See 4.29am.) As the Law Society Gazette reports, Bill Waddington, a former chair of the Criminal Law Solicitors’ Association, said what Sunak wanted would be “very difficult” to achieve. He told the paper:
Nobody can force [defendants] to listen or force them not to disrupt proceedings if they were to do so. If a defendant were to disrupt proceedings, the judge would instantly say we will carry on the rest of the hearing without you. It is very difficult to see how any sort of change in the law could force people to come and sit in court if they choose not to do so.
Nadine Dorries, the former culture secretary, has been accused of abandoning her constituents by a town council in her Mid Bedfordshire constituency that is urging her to honour her promise to leave parliament immediately. (See 3.42pm.)
The two main political parties are united today in agreeing that the law should be changed to try to ensure that defendants have to be in court for sentencing. (See 9.42am and 10.41am.)
But legal commentators are much more sceptical about whether this can be done, or whether it should even be tried. Joshua Rozenberg has published a post on this on his Substack blog. It includes a link to a good blog on this topic written earlier this year by the Secret Barrister (a barrister who has published three books anonymously about the legal system).
Of course, defendants should attend court to hear victim impact statements and the judge’s sentencing remarks. That may bring some comfort to victims and their families. But, as I wrote yesterday, there is no point in punishing non-attendance by imposing an additional prison sentence on a defendant who is going to receive a whole-life order.
Sir Robert Buckland, the former justice secretary, has spoken about the practical difficulties of bringing unwilling defendants into court. The Secret Barrister wrote about this in April. I wrote about it in February. But the government is pressing ahead with legislation.
Updated
