Laura Hoyano

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Reports on the results of an empirical research study commissioned by the Crown Prosecution Service on how Crown prosecutors use the Code for Crown Prosecutors to make decisions regarding a range of offences, using the evidential and public interest criteria.

This reports the findings of a qualitative empirical research study commissioned by the Home Office in 1997, to investigate the extent to which cases of alleged sexual, physical and emotional abuse or neglect are not prosecuted because the evidence gathered during the investigation are deemed insufficient or inadmissible. The study examined how that evidence is collected and evaluated in each of the three phases of a criminal prosecution: the interagency investigation, the assessment by the Crown Prosecution Service, and the trial.The study also provides a comparative survey of measures to facilitate the taking of children's evidence in other jurisdictions, in particular in Canada, United States, New Zealand and Australia.

ISBN: 1-84082-357-7

This book examines the whole process of child protection from complaint investigation to prosecution in the criminal and civil courts. It provides a coherent analysis of current law and procedure across the legal and geographical boundaries within which legal discussion of child abuse is usually confined, analysing criminal, family, tort, human rights and evidence law as they bear on child abuse cases. Comparative material is drawn from over 75 jurisdictionsusing the adversarial trial model. The book was awarded the first Inner Temple Book Prize (2008). The paperback edition is updated in English law, including the Coroners and Justice Act 2009 enacted on 12 November 2009.

ISBN: 978-0-19-829946-2

This book examines the whole process of child protection from complaint investigation to prosecution in the criminal and civil courts. It provides a coherent analysis of current law and procedure across the legal and geographical boundaries within which legal discussion of child abuse is usually confined, analysing criminal, family, tort, human rights and evidence law as they bear on child abuse cases. Comparative material is drawn from over 75 jurisdictionsusing the adversarial trial model. The book was awarded the first Inner Temple Book Prize (2008). The paperback edition is updated in English law, including the Coroners and Justice Act 2009 enacted on 12 November 2009.

ISBN: 978-0-19-957156-7

This article will explore recent developments in neuroscience which show that the normal adolescent brain does not fully develop in its capacity to appreciate consequences and assume full responsibility for conduct until many years past the age of criminal responsibility, currently 10 in England and Wales. The article will advocate that England and Wales should move to the Scottish Children's Hearing System, which offers an integrated service to offending children who are deemed to be children in need to address their offending behaviour and its root causes without criminalisation.

This article maps (through diagrams) and analyses the changes made by the Coroners and Justice Act 2009 to existing Special Measures Directions for child witnesses, child defendants and complainants of sexual assault under the Youth Justice and Criminal Evidence Act 1999. Adult defendants suffering from some form of significant mental impairment are for the first time made eligible to apply for leave to testify using the live link and with the assistance of an intermediary. In addition, the 2009 Act deems witnesses to violent offences against the person involving the use of firearms or knives to be intimidated and hence automatically eligible for Special Measures. The article concludes that the measures for defendants do not go far enough and are susceptible to challenge under ECHR Article 6, and perhaps go too far in introducing anomalies in the treatment of different categories of intimidated witnesses.

The current offence of child cruelty in the Children and Young Persons Act 1933 (CYPA) originates in 1868. This article contends that it is not fit for its purpose, particularly given new understanding of the neurological and developmental impairments inflicted by neglect and emotional abuse. It should be replaced by a comprehensive maltreatment offence which is comprehensible to criminal and civil child protection agencies, professionals and the public.

The current offence of child cruelty in the Children and Young Persons Act 1933 originates in 1868. This article contends that it is not fit for its purpose, particularly given new understanding of the neurological and developmental impairments inflicted by neglect and emotional abuse. It proposes a new comprehensive maltreatment of fans which would be comprehensible to criminal and civil child protection agencies, professionals and the public.

Discusses the decision of the Supreme Court of Canada holding builders liable in negligence to subsequent purchasers for the cost of repairing dangerous defects in Winnipeg Condominium No 36 v Bird Construction [1995] 1 SCR 85, and argues that the House of Lords should abandon the immunity from such liability it accorded builders in D&F Estates and in Murphy v Brentwood.

This is an empirical research project funded by the New Zealand law foundation, examining how child protection experts experience the adversarial criminal trial system as compared with the more inquisitorial family court system,and the factors which inhibit them from choosing to become involved in expert testimony work. The Nuffield Foundation has invited the researchers to resubmit a funding proposal for a companion study of UK experts, which we will probably do following the conclusion of the New Zealand study, which should result in at least one Journal article.

This Textbook, designed for postgraduates andsenior undergraduates, will provide an accessible but intellectually rigorous text book which addresses how human rights issues are configured and adjudicated in the specific British context, exploring the multiple dimensions of the European Convention on Human Rights, the European Union, international law, and national legislation and common law, and an introduction to human rights theory , integrating this into the legal analysis.

Despite expressions of judicial distaste for the "current fashion" of alleging civil fraud, there continue to be significant of damages to pleading the tort of deceit as alternate or concurrent liability to negligent mistatement. This article explores the evidentiary difficulties in proving the requisite mental intent in the tort of deceit, with particular focus on pronouncements from the British Columbia Court of Appeal and the Supreme Court of Canada requiring that a plaintiff prove that the defendant intended to deceive the plaintiff in making the false statement. The author contends that this view was mistaken, and that both precedent and policy dictate that the requisite mental intent be merely that of inducing reliance upon the mistatement. To impose an additional requirement of proof of intent to deceive would extinguish recklessness as a separate avenue to establishing the dishonesty which is the essence of the tort, and might well result in making the tort of fraud more difficult to prove than the criminal offence of fraud.

DOI: 10.1111/1468-2230.00414

A critical analysis of the British cases considering the recoverability in tort of the cost of maintaining a child born following a failed sterilisation procedure, beginning with McFarlane v Tayside Health Authority [2000] 2 AC 59, and culminating in the Court of Appeal decision in Rees v. Darlington Memorial Hospital NHS Trust [2002] 2 All ER 177.

ISBN: 1468-2230

Critically evaluates the decision of the Supreme Court of Canada in Hill v Church of Scientology [1995] 2 S.C.R. 1130 holding that the common law tort of defamation generally complies with the guarantee of freedom of expression in the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms.

This article critically evaluates judicial arguments against the imposition of tort liability on police forces for negligent investigations of crime. The article analyses and defends the much-criticised decision of the European Court of Human Rights in Osman v UK.

This is an entirely new chapter for Blackstone’s Criminal Practice, and explains the statutory provisions and case law governing (1) special measures for child and vulnerable witnesses, including defendants (2) best practice in questioning child and vulnerable witnesses and (3) witness anonymity orders.

This is a substantial rewrite of the section D4 of Blackstone’s Criminal Practice 2012, which was written as a new chapter of the book.

The Youth Justice and Criminal Evidence Act 1999 enables courts to issue Special Measures Directions to protect children and other vulnerable witnesses. This article reviewed the compatibility of these measures with the fair trial guarantee contained in article 6 of the European Convention on Human Rights. Subject to a few doubtful cases, including the withholding of Special Measures from child defendants, the great majority of Special Measures Directions were concluded to be likely to be ECHR-compatible. It was cited with approval by the House of Lords in R v Camberwell Green Youth Court ex parte D [2005] UKHL 4, [2005] 1 WLR 393, in holding that the 'primary rule' regime for child witnesses was compatible with article 6, but expressing doubt about the exclusion of child defendants from Special Measures.

ISBN: 0011 135X

In December 2004 the Government announced a review of child evidence with a remit to consider whether section 28 of the Youth Justice and Criminal Evidence Act 1999, providing for video taped pre-trial cross-examination, should be retained in some form, to review the performance of Special Measures for child witnesses, and to consider measures for vulnerable defendants. The Review Group's Consultation Paper, Improving the Criminal Trial Process of Young Witnesses, was published only in June 2007. This article critically evaluates the most significant recommendations. As of October 2008, the Government had yet to publish its position regarding the responses to the Consultation Paper, notwithstanding that the consultation period had closed in October 2007.

ISBN: 0011 135X

critically evaluates the decision of the House of Lords in Hunt v Severs [1994] 2 AC 350 holding that a catastrophically injured claimant could not recover for her past and future cost of care, where that care had been provided by the tortfeasor.

This chapter explores the invasion of part of the territory of common law obligations by the fiduciary phenomenon, considering in particular Canadian and Australian jurisprudence. The encroachment of fiduciary concepts into Hedley Byrne advisory relationships and fiduciary liability for sexual exploitation is considered in some depth.

ISBN: 0-19-876488-X

In the new era of concurrent liability, Commonwealth appellate courts have called for the rationalisation of the law of remedies across causes of action. Yet the formalistic logic of the current remedial rules applicable to misrepresentations actionable in tort and contract can yield widely discrepant results on the same matrix of facts. Anomalies are exposed where the contract was induced by fraudulent or negligent misrepresentation, but the victim discovered the truth only after fully performing the contract. The tort damages will usually equal the contract award where the misrepresentation was relatively minor, such that the court concludes that had the plaintiff known the truth, it would have been negotiated the contract price to reflect the actual circumstances, increasing the profit margin. However, where the misrepresentation was so serious that the fully informed victim would have refused to contract with the defendant under any terms, the award is calculated on the basis of the plaintiff's cost of performance, without any compensation for loss of profit. To circumvent this paradox, the courts have devised several stratagems to award the plaintiff damages for lost profit. This article shows these devices to be flawed, and that under the current orthodoxy, the law still leaves the defendant to enjoy the fruits of its tort. The author proposes an alternate rule which redefines loss of profits in this context as reliance loss, submitting that this measure best achieves tort's remedial objectives of full compensation and deterrence.

This article evaluates the standard of care applicable to education professionals in Canadian, English and Australian law.

This article maps and analyses the Special Measures Directions introduced for child and other vulnerable and intimidated witnesses by the Youth Justice and Criminal Evidence Act 1999. Simplified versions of the diagrams in this article are reproduced in the several editions of the official government guidance to Special Measures Directions, Achieving Best Evidence (Home Office et al).

This article contests the notion, prevalent in British jurisprudence regarding ECHR Article 6, and recently adopted by the Grand Chamber in Al-Khawaja v UK, that the right to a fair trial involves the 'balancing' of the rights of the defendant against the rights of the prosecution, the complainant and other witnesses, and the community at large. It argues that the whole notion of balancing is fundamentally misconceived, setting up a conflictual trap whereby defence rights are always seen as being in antithesis to those of the prosecution representing the overarching public interest. Instead, I propose a model embodying a sense of objective fairness predicated upon the right to a verdict with integrity; as such this right is not allocated to any one participant in the trial but is a common good, erasing any perceived antitheses within Article 6. The article goes on to explore the concept of "the essence of the right" in Article 6(3) caselaw, and explains why this has been extinguished by the approach to Article 6 of the Grand Chamber in Al-Khawaja, sacrificing principle to juridical, and possibly political, expediency. The consequence is that Article 6 now only serves to protect the right to a 'fair-ish' trial.

evaluates the decision of the House of Lords in Camberwell Green Youth Court ex parte D [2005] UKHL 4, [2005] 1 WLR 393, which held that mandatory Special Measures Directions for child witnessesunder the Youth Justice and Criminal Evidence Act 1999 in principle comply with ECHR Article 6.