Last week the Government published the Crime and Policing Bill. The bill proposes a range of new offences and an expansion of powers to seek to address knife crime, violence against women and girls, cybercrime, child sexual abuse, terrorism and generally rebuild public confidence in the policing and criminal justice system. The bill is over 300 pages so we have just highlighted a few of changes below:
📌 𝐄𝐱𝐩𝐚𝐧𝐬𝐢𝐨𝐧 𝐨𝐟 𝐜𝐨𝐫𝐩𝐨𝐫𝐚𝐭𝐞 𝐥𝐢𝐚𝐛𝐢𝐥𝐢𝐭𝐲. The Economic Crime and Corporate Transparency Act 2023 changed the basis for corporate liability for economic crimes so that a corporation will have criminal liability if a ‘senior manager’ of a corporation acting within the actual or apparent scope of their authority commits a specified offence within the UK. The bill will extend this to apply to all criminal offences.
📌 𝐂𝐨𝐧𝐟𝐢𝐬𝐜𝐚𝐭𝐢𝐨𝐧 𝐫𝐞𝐟𝐨𝐫𝐦. The bill proposes amendments to enhance the process by which confiscation orders are made, ensuring they are realistic, proportionate and easier to enforce.
📌 𝐂𝐨𝐬𝐭 𝐩𝐫𝐨𝐭𝐞𝐜𝐭𝐢𝐨𝐧𝐬 𝐟𝐨𝐫 𝐥𝐚𝐰 𝐞𝐧𝐟𝐨𝐫𝐜𝐞𝐦𝐞𝐧𝐭 𝐚𝐠𝐞𝐧𝐜𝐢𝐞𝐬 𝐢𝐧 𝐫𝐞𝐬𝐩𝐞𝐜𝐭 𝐨𝐟 𝐜𝐢𝐯𝐢𝐥 𝐫𝐞𝐜𝐨𝐯𝐞𝐫𝐲 𝐩𝐫𝐨𝐜𝐞𝐞𝐝𝐢𝐧𝐠𝐬. The bill proposes new cost protections for law enforcement agencies to protect them from the risk of adverse costs in civil recovery proceedings provided they have acted reasonably and honestly.
📌 𝐍𝐞𝐰 ‘𝐒𝐈𝐌 𝐟𝐚𝐫𝐦𝐬’ 𝐨𝐟𝐟𝐞𝐧𝐜𝐞. A new offence has been proposed to prohibit the possession and supply of ‘SIM farms’ with no legitimate purpose. SIM farms are special devices that can use multiple SIM cards to send bulk scam texts.
📌 𝐍𝐞𝐰 𝐞𝐥𝐞𝐜𝐭𝐫𝐨𝐧𝐢𝐜 𝐝𝐞𝐯𝐢𝐜𝐞𝐬 𝐮𝐬𝐞𝐝 𝐟𝐨𝐫 𝐯𝐞𝐡𝐢𝐜𝐥𝐞 𝐭𝐡𝐞𝐟𝐭 𝐨𝐟𝐟𝐞𝐧𝐜𝐞. A new offence has been proposed to prohibit possession and distribution of electronic devices for use in vehicle offences. Government statistics indicate that currently 40% of vehicle thefts in the England and Wales use these sorts of devices.
Click on the following link for more information: Crime and Policing Bill publications – Parliamentary Bills – UK Parliament