Published in [2017] Criminal Law Review 93-105, and available on Westlaw; unfortunately we are no... more Published in [2017] Criminal Law Review 93-105, and available on Westlaw; unfortunately we are not allowed to upload the article. Abstract: Equality of arms for child and other vulnerable defendants, in particular access to the special measures routinely provided to prosecution witnesses with the same vulnerabilities, has been contentious since 1999. Much progress has been forced through court rulings concerned about such defendants’ capacity to cope with the demands of the adversarial trial. This progress appears to have been reversed by the April 2016 amending Criminal Practice Direction stating that the appointment of defendant intermediaries should be “rare” for the defendant’s testimony, and “extremely rare” for the entire trial. This article considers the legal options for challenging this retrograde step.
Published in [2017] Criminal Law Review 93-105, and available on Westlaw; unfortunately we are no... more Published in [2017] Criminal Law Review 93-105, and available on Westlaw; unfortunately we are not allowed to upload the article. Abstract: Equality of arms for child and other vulnerable defendants, in particular access to the special measures routinely provided to prosecution witnesses with the same vulnerabilities, has been contentious since 1999. Much progress has been forced through court rulings concerned about such defendants’ capacity to cope with the demands of the adversarial trial. This progress appears to have been reversed by the April 2016 amending Criminal Practice Direction stating that the appointment of defendant intermediaries should be “rare” for the defendant’s testimony, and “extremely rare” for the entire trial. This article considers the legal options for challenging this retrograde step.
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