The Secret Barrister: Stories of the Law and How It's Broken

by The Secret Barrister

Our national fetish has seen the England and Wales prison population soar by 90 per cent since 1990, standing at 85,500.26 We imprison people at a higher rate (146 per 100,000) than anywhere in Western Europe. Northern Ireland, by comparison, has an imprisonment rate of 76 per 100,000. Sweden’s figure is 57. Iceland’s is 38.27 Nearly 68,000 people were sent to prison in 2016. 71 per cent had committed a non-violent offence. And our sentences are getting longer. The average prison sentence for indictable offences has increased by over 25 per cent in the last decade.28 We have more prisoners sentenced to an indeterminate term of imprisonment than in the other forty-six countries in the Council of Europe combined.

46 per cent of all prisoners re-offend within a year of leaving prison. For those serving short sentences of less than twelve months, this increases to 60 per cent.

no evidence, sexual or otherwise, is ever admissible in a courtroom unless it is relevant and of ‘evidential value’, and sexual history evidence is only admissible where not admitting it might lead to the jury reaching an unsafe conclusion. Secondly, more egregiously, the entire purpose of the legislation Ms Harman was trying to change was to eliminate from courts the very ‘notion’ that she attacks. If it appears to a judge that the defence are applying to rely on sexual history evidence to attack a complainant’s credibility – for example to evoke the myth that ‘unchaste women’ are less worthy of belief – the statute expressly disallows it.