Ronald Biggs has been released, then, Jack Straw having decided he could now be released on compassionate grounds, rather than on parole, which he earlier refused. Straw's statement explains the new decision in terms of the different criteria he had to take account of in relation to the two issues. Still, my feeling is that for the law to be respected it must be inexorable: I'd have made Biggs repay every moment of his debt of time, even if (since he's in a hospital, not in prison) only symbolically.Perhaps I'm the only one who'd have applauded Jack Straw had he taken that hard line.

I’ve been slow in reacting to the Lords’ final judgment yesterday in R (Purdy) v DPP, partly because I was in Cambridge, but partly because I’ve been worrying at the judgment since I heard the news reports […]

If the Guardian’s right that News Group Newspapers have illegally hacked, or paid investigators to illegally hack, the mobile phone messages of celebrities, then those investigators and journalists may have committed the offence of unlawful interception under section […]

Harrow Council has abandoned its prosecution of Mrinal Patel today. No surprise there, then. I expressed myself in moderate terms while criminal proceedings were under way, but summonsing her under the Fraud Act 2006 always looked dodgy – […]

It’s been widely reported that Jack Straw has turned down parole for Ronald Biggs.

For the parole board to recommend his release may be humane in the individual case, but it would not be right in the broader […]

I don’t propose to comment at any length on this Lords judgment from the week before last. It has interesting facts, and signals that the BBC are planning to screen an interesting programme about possible “wrong acquittals”, which in […]

Yesterday’s judgment in this case is interesting: their Lordships have decided that Kerrie Gray, who was injured in the Ladbroke Grove rail crash of 1999, cannot recover damages in negligence from Thames Trains and Network Rail for the consequences […]

I must post briefly on something that’s annoyed me: George Alagiah just said, summarising the day’s headlines on BBC News, that the murderers Sonnex and Farmer were sentenced to 40 and 35 years respectively. They weren’t. They were sentenced to […]

You may remember that last week Mrs. Patel appeared at Harrow Magistrates’ Court; she’s being prosecuted by Harrow Council under section 2 of the Fraud Act 2006, the accusation being that she gave a false address in order […]

Charon interviewed me today about the MPs’ offences scandal – including potential criminal liability under the Fraud Act 2006 – and about the Speaker’s decision to call in the police, not to investigate MPs’ claims but astonishingly to investigate […]