The title is a quote from an article on Peter Joyce’s new website ‘Blackstone’s Drum‘. Blackstone (1723-1780) famously said “it is better that ten guilty persons escape than that one innocent suffer.” This principle is said to have influenced the nineteenth-century development of “beyond a reasonable doubt” as the burden of proof in criminal law […]

In 2009 Mark Barlow and Mark Newby delivered their seminal paper on challenging past historical allegations of abuse at a conference which brought together all sides in the Criminal Justice System. They are the guest speakers at our Autumn Conference and the title of their presentation will be “The last 10 years of historical abuse […]

The following is an extract from an article about the potential harm to the wrongfully accused caused by the “compensation culture”. It was written by one of our members, Jeremy Dunning-Davies who also supplied the data in the graph. The whole article is available here. “One of the banes of our present-day society is the […]

Gareth Jones was a care worker who was convicted of sexual assault in 2008. Gareth who has learning difficulties was working in a care home and called for help because a woman with dementia was bleeding heavily. He was arrested the following day. He had only been alone with the woman for four minutes while […]

You could be forgiven for not having heard of the Gillen Review. The Criminal Justice Board in Northern Ireland commissioned this review of the arrangements to deliver justice in serious sexual offence cases. Its task was to ‘determine whether current arrangements deliver the best outcomes for victims, defendants and justice; and to make recommendations for […]

Daniel Berke of 3D solicitors was our main speaker at our Autumn conference. He has published a video where he explains the importance of gaining full disclosure of evidence to support your defence, and how you can help your defence team. Please take a look at this very useful video. https://vimeo.com/294637559

This is a very scary book. However, most people who read this book review on FACT website will already have some experience of how the legal system is malfunctioning. The Secret Barrister (a junior barrister specialising in criminal law and named Independent Blogger of the Year in 2016 and 2017) begins by tracing the history […]

The wrongfully accused may feel heartened by two items of good news in the last week. First there was Judge Mann’s judgement in favour of Cliff Richard who had his reputation, health and income trashed by the actions of the BBC. You can read Simon Warr’s views on this judgement here. Secondly the Justice Select […]

Chris Saltrese is a solicitor specialising in the defence of those accused of sexual offences. He is a member of our advisory group. He has submitted written evidence to the Justice Committee ‘Inquiry on Disclosure of Evidence’. The full submission is available here. The following are extracts from his submission summarising the problem and his […]

Thanks to Dr Ros Burnett, Oxford University Criminology Department, for bringing the following news items to our attention Some FACT members have suffered injustice due to failures of disclosure. We now have a very welcome opportunity to submit evidence to the Justice Committee. We believe that contrary to the view previously expressed by the DPP […]