Dr. Jamie Grace

Teaching public law, human rights & criminal justice policy. Researching domestic abuse prevention & the policing of protest. RTs are for information/research.

[Harriet Wistrich @HWistrich]

At a pre-trial hearing, the judge said there was a “heavy burden” on the prosecution, particularly given backlogs in the courts system.” What on earth are the CPS doing ????? - anger at ordeal of UK woman accused of illegal abortion https://t.co/kXnKXeHJLh

[English Radical History @EnglishRadical]

"Ah! Why will Kings forget that they are men? & Men that they are brethren? Why delight In human sacrifice? Why burst the ties Of Nature, that should knit their souls together In one soft bond of amity & love?"

Beilby Porteus, Anglican bishop & abolitionist, died #OTD 1809.

[English Radical History @EnglishRadical]

"The true greatness of England has arisen in spite of the ignorance, obstinacy, and wickedness of her rulers."

William Lovett, cabinet maker and one of the leaders of the Chartist movement, was born #OnThisDay 1800.

[Law Society Gazette @lawsocgazette]

'Urgent' review of protest cases following Court of Appeal ruling:

https://t.co/pWqLG723Ft

[Lord Walney @LordWalney]

We must change whatever law or process allowed Kneecap to win its court case to keep its grant from the UK Govt. Britain needs a system that upholds our values, not one that pays people to undermine them https://t.co/mkm5TNS4pA

[Police Federation of England and Wales @PFEW_HQ]

Report @HMICFRS shows policing is broken and is breaking its best and bravest.

"Officers are leaving the job in record numbers because they simply cannot afford to stay and the price of doing the job is too high," reacted Acting National Chair Tiff Lynch.

Full statement 👇

[Stephen Davies @sdavieslaw]

Dear @sarahsackman KC MP

You are right in saying your Govt inherited this mess, but as the statistics published today show, the system receives more cases than it disposes of. Why is that? Because you continue to hold back on money for Recorders.
https://t.co/s91EleO4H7

[ICIBI @IndependentCI]

The Independent Chief Inspector's report on the Border Force operation to deter and detect clandestine entrants to the UK has been published and is available on the ICIBI website:

https://t.co/MXdrb3mosu

[The CBA @TheCriminalBar]

Why won’t criminal Barristers carry on doing RASSO work?

According to our survey, 77% think that remuneration does not reflect the many hours of work undertaken and the emotional toll it causes. In addition, over half are exhausted from the trauma that these cases bring.

[Liberty @libertyhq]

UPDATE

The Court has granted Cambridge the proposed injunction

Students will be BANNED from protesting at three key university sites until the end of July

This sets a DANGEROUS PRECEDENT which will severely restrict protest rights on campus

https://t.co/yqyArPphLS

[David Challen @David_Challen]

Govt has REFUSED to introduce a legal defence for domestic abuse survivors who defend themselves from their abuser or are forced into crime, despite evidence in the @CommissionerDA Shifting the Scales report that existing defences do not work...

Instead of fixing a criminal justice system that punishes survivors, they’ve outright rejected reforms that could stop abused women being criminalised.

🔺 Govt claims survivors don’t need a legal defence, yet cases like Sally Challen, Martyna Ogonowska, Stacey Hyde (and many many more) prove otherwise - and keep happening.

Time and again evidence shows that women who kill in self-defence or are coerced into crime rarely succeed in using existing available defences. Courts fail to grasp coercive control, readily ignoring years of abuse and treating survivors as cold-blooded murderers rather than victims of abuse (crimes) that preceded it.

Without reform, more abused women will be criminalised instead of protected.

But wait, let me compound govt's wilful failure to recognise offending rooted in domestic abuse further...

🔺 Coercive control convictions are almost NON-EXISTENT. Despite being a crime for nearly a decade, just 0.01% of recorded offences result in conviction.

If courts cannot recognise coercive control, how can survivors trust them to protect them?

They can't.

Escalation follows and the outcomes for victims facing this violence thus fall:

🔺 Killed by their abuser – domestic abuse remains one of the leading causes of female homicide.

🔺 Take their own lives (domestic abuse-related suicide) - as many as THREE women a week die by suicide due to domestic abuse, with some estimates suggesting the real number could be as high as TEN women a week.

🔺 Wait for their abuser to die – many elderly survivors endure years of violence with no way out, going unseen and unheard.

🔺 Flee and risk escalating harm – leaving remains most dangerous time for a survivor. Many face further violence, harassment, stalking or even murder. Hence need to tackle coercive control, with urgency.

🔺 Kill their abuser in self-defence – some, after years of abuse, act to save their own lives, only to be treated as criminals instead of survivors.

Clare Wade KC’s Domestic Homicide Sentencing Review was clear... the justice system does NOT understand domestic abuse. Survivors do not just wake up and choose to commit a crime... they act after years of control, violence and fear.

The physical and psychological torment can be unfathomable, the erosion of self identity, the suffocation of control. Yet today, the govt refuses to acknowledge any of this reality.

Without this reform, abused women like my mother will continue to be punished for their own trauma, failed by a govt that refuses to tackle the violence that leads to their crimes.

Govt had a chance to listen, to learn, and to act, but instead, it has wilfully chosen ignorance and inaction.

It is maddening to watch this cycle.
➡️ https://t.co/7NRLpwhzue

[Liberty @libertyhq]

BREAKING

Cambridge University is trying to BAN PROTESTS from their campuses...

Today, we’re in court intervening on this infringement on students' fundamental rights

🧵 (1/6)
https://t.co/KmaoxuwftI

[CJ McKinney @mckinneytweets]

"The legal definition of terrorism is already wide and should not be changed any further."

[Queen Mary UCU @qm_ucu]

If you're being approached by SOAS to do marking, be aware that the SOAS tutors are on a marking boycott & you're being asked to scab mark (managers don't feel they should be transparent about it)

hardship fund: https://t.co/VFZmm6pZnL
template motion: https://t.co/VmEVnTBCJB

[HJA Civil Liberties @HJAcivillibs]

Thames Valley Police have admitted acting unlawfully in arresting Symon Hill, a trainee Baptist minister who called out “Who elected him?” at a local proclamation of the accession of King Charles III https://t.co/glxxufEgZc

[Saul Staniforth @SaulStaniforth]

.@ShaniDhanda "Nearly half of everyone that already lives in poverty is a disabled person or a carer of a disabled person. If we're going to cut support to people that need it most its going to push more people into extreme poverty, with the backdrop of the assisted dying bill"🎯

[HMCPSI @hmcpsi]

Today we have published a follow-up report following our 2023 inspection into @CPSUK’s management of domestic abuse cases. Progress has been made but further improvements are required to tackle this traumatic crime and better support victims https://t.co/PPi67FHyTo

[Liberty @libertyhq]

NEW

Policing units told local forces to STOP releasing information to the public on use of facial recognition + banned surveillance tools

"At a time when public trust in police is at an all-time low, transparency in their actions has never been more important." 🗣️ Akiko Hart

[Policing Insight @PolicingInsight]

When it comes to research and services for victims of adolescent domestic abuse (ADA), those aged under 16 are often overlooked by policies that focus on the adult domestic abuse (DA) agenda; Gloucestershire Deputy Chief Constable Katy Barrow-Grint and City St George’s, University of London Senior Researcher Dr Ruth Weir spoke to Policing Insight’s Sarah Gibbons about new efforts to identify the scale and nature of the problem, and encouraging police forces to use technology to extract ADA data.
[SUBSCRIBER ARTICLE]
https://t.co/XacpASoWxS
@ktbg1 @Glos_Police
@DrRuthWeir