Archive for August 2012

Compounding a felony and settling criminal offences

Is it an offence to fail to report a crime? In George Bernard Shaw’s “Heartbreak House”, which played this summer at the Chichester Festival Theatre, a burglar enters the house and is caught stealing some diamonds. After this is the following exchange:

“THE BURGLAR – Right. I’ll go to the police station and give myself up.
HECTOR – Oh, no. You mustn’t do that.
RANDALL – No no. Clear out man, can’t you; and don’t be a fool.
MRS. HUSHABYE – Don’t be so silly. Can’t you repent at home?
LADY UTTERWORD – You will have to do as you are told.
THE BURGLAR – It’s compounding a felony, you know.
MRS HUSHABYE – This is utterly ridiculous. Are we to be forced to prosecute this man when we don’t want to?”

What happens next in Julian Assange extradition drama?

Shortly before 2pm today, Ecuador’s Foreign Minister, Ricardo Patino, announced his Government’s decision to grant asylum to Julian Assange. The announcement concludes the strangest chapter yet in the legal and diplomatic soap opera that is Mr Assange’s extradition proceedings. And like every soap opera, the big question arising from today’s events is: what happens next?

Inquests – growing in number and scope

There are more inquests being held than ever before, and over recent years the ambit of inquests has widened considerably, to the extent that there is a greater willingness by coroners to investigate wider issues than the actual cause of death, such as the circumstances of the death or any wider problem identified during the course of the inquest, and to then take preventative action. This means that there is now greater scrutiny of government departments, public bodies, companies and individuals and so being an interested party in an inquest cannot be taken lightly.