Even with Labour’s increases in deportations, the UK’s legal framework remains a significant barrier to removing illegal migrants. The Human Rights Act, in particular, acts as a lifeline for those who fail their asylum claims. Appeals drag on for months, sometimes years, as migrants cite Article 8 (the right to private and family life) or Article 3 (protection from inhumane treatment) to block deportation. Time and again, these legal challenges succeed, creating a merry-go-round that prevents meaningful enforcement of immigration rules. Labour, despite its rhetoric, has shown no inclination to repeal the Human Rights Act, a cornerstone of the system…
New workplace anti-harassment rules have just come into force. There is now a duty on employers to take reasonable steps to prevent sexual pestering of their employees. Failure to do so can lead to unlimited compensation. This covers inappropriate comments, exclusion from meetings or just admiring and paying a compliment, if the employee objects. And certainly no casual touching. It is typical of the woke nonsense, which will go some way to killing off Christmas parties. In a survey, 87% of workers said that they would rather have a bonus than a party, so forget the mistletoe! Good memories though.…
Thousands of people including children are being investigated by police for incidents, which are not even crimes. Nine year olds having playground arguments, e.g. to another pupil “you smell like fish” are all being logged on a computer. It is incredible and a disgrace, that police time should be wasted in this way and we have not heard a peep from the Police Commissioners, who are supposed to hold them to account. This at a time when shoplifting is rife, yet when the shopkeeper phones the police or a householder who scares away an intruder, they do not even show…
I was dismayed to learn that Captain Tom’s Foundation is not going to take legal action to recover the money that should be going to good causes, due to the high legal costs. I have therefore offered my services, as one of the most experienced litigation lawyers in the country, pro bono. Is there a barrister who would join the team on the same basis please? If so, please get in touch. Rodney Hylton-Potts
The Bar Standards Board which regulates barristers, proposes to impose a positive duty to “act in a way that advances equality, diversity and inclusion”. It sounds innocuous but it is a step too far. Professionals already require barristers not to “discriminate unlawfully against any person”. A professional person should not need guidance like this. Solicitors will remember the infamous “green card” in the 1990s issued by the Law Society to warn solicitors about the dangers of mortgage fraud. As Sir David Napley said at the time “A solicitor does not need a “green card” or any other colour card, to…
Leading barristers and Kings Counsel are not immune to allegations of sexual misconduct. Najot Sidhu KC faces charges that he used his highly respected senior law status to harass his female pupils and trainees. One pupil said that on an overnight work trip he invited her to stay in his bed, putting pillows down the middle to “act as a barricade” between them. He denies the charges and his application to have the hearing held in private was denied. He now faces an eight day public hearing and no doubt the press will have a field day. When reading this…
Junior lawyers at a US firm work on average for more than 14 hours a day, clocking in from 9.19am to 11.11pm. Starting salaries verging on £180,000 p.a. translate to brutal working hours. Recent press reports of 60 or 70 hour weeks for young lawyers in the UK in exchange for huge starting salaries, have brought into focus how long the working week should be. In a perfect world a lawyer, or anyone else running a business, should be able to make a reasonable living and profit working a 40 hour week but, in the real world, any self-employed person…
Should bad conduct – domestic violence, economic or other abuse – be taken into account by judges when splitting family assets? Judges do not like trawling over the history of marriages. Such cases used to take weeks when that was done and were hugely expensive and often just ended in ‘He said/ She said’. Conduct is only taken into account if it is so, gross or horrible that it is “inequitable” and “unfair” to disregard it. This used to be serious violence, sex in the marital bed or paedophilia. Nowadays however, judges tend not to want to go into the…
An essential step to winning any form of dispute, court case, benefit fraud investigation or legal battle is to record everything carefully and promptly. This simple step is best done in a Chronology Word document, which Hylton-Potts can supply free of charge. The key advice is to make the entries and record things on the day they happen. Months later you might be asked by a judge or somebody “How do I know this happened as you have written it”? You can reply “Because I did it the same day on legal advice”. This works and is very important.
Whether it be benefit fraud, tax credit fraud, a court summons or a family problem, bad news tends to arrive in a brown envelope (or these days on a Portal). It might say that Universal Credit want to see your bank statements and you know that, when they do, a problem will be revealed. It might your partner’s lawyer, saying you cannot see your children. The natural reaction is to freeze up and go into a blind panic. Perfectly normal. Almost universal. You have to remember, however, that you are, in effect. on a stage in a play. From that…
