30 April 2021
There’s a new legislative tool in town and it could be a game changer for criminal lawyers, Kingsley Napley criminal litigation partners Sandra Paul and Rebecca Niblock write in NLJ this week.
New guidance and a recent case address the vexing issues of whether a complainant should be required to give their mobile phone to investigators and how the police and prosecution should handle such vast reams of data.
‘From a defence lawyer’s perspective, [the case’s] (implicit) weighing of the Art 8 rights of complainants against suspects’ right to fair trial has tipped the scales into potential injustice,’ they write.
‘If no complaint or judicial notice arises from a complainant deliberately deleting relevant data, it is difficult to see how the right to a fair trial is preserved for the defendant.’
Paul and Niblock take a comprehensive look at the questions that arise and the potential approaches available.
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