The Demise of Family Legal Aid- What Happens After 1st April 2013?

THE DEMISE OF LEGAL AID FOR FAMILY LAW

What happens after 1^st April 2013?

The Legal Aid(Sentencing and Punishment of Offenders) Act 2012  has received Royal Assent and is now an Act of Parliament implemented into UK legislation. The new reforms are due to take place on 1^st April 2013.

The new provisions create The Legal Aid Agency, which will be an Executive Agency of the Ministry of Justice and will replace the Legal Services Commission (LSC). There will be changes to the eligibility for, and scope of, legal aid cover.

The new legislation is intended to save £350 million from the Ministry of Justice’s annual legal aid budget and cuts equal to 40% have been announced to the legal aid sector. According to a parliamentary report, the new Act will lead to 500,000 fewer instances of legal help to many individuals and 45,000 fewer instances to legal representation.

The Government cuts to Family Legal Aid will undoubtedly lead to a reduction in legal representation for many people at one of the most vulnerable times in their lives.

According to the Ministry of Justice, legal aid will still be available in criminal and childcare proceedings, some family or civil proceedings and in claims made by victims of domestic violence. However, the claimant will need to show that legal aid is absolutely necessary; for example in cases where a person faces a risk of serious physical harm, their life or liberty is at stake, they face immediate loss of their home or their children may be taken into care.  The new criteria are extremely limited resulting in only a minority of firms retaining and renewing their Legal Aid Franchise to undertake family legal aid work.  The remaining firms are permitted to conclude any ongoing legal aid work beyond 1^st April 2013 but are not permitted to make any new applications after that date. 

The results will inevitably mean longer waiting times for appointments, travelling further afield and if and when an appointment is secured, the few remaining solicitors providing legal aid being too busy to provide a personal and unique service to their clients.

From 1^st April 2013, as a result of these changes, Hadgkiss Hughes & Beale will no longer undertake legal aid for family work.  We are however, able to provide you with a prompt and personal service treating you as an individual in your time of need.  We will provide you with a professional and approachable service with fixed fees, and budgeting measures to ensure that you can still receive and have access to the expert advice and assistance you require. 

Arrange an appointment with one of our Family Experts: Hardip Lall email: hardiplall@hhb-mo.co.uk  or Katie Ward email: katieward@hhb-mo.co.uk or telephone 0121 449 5050.

We offer a free, no obligation, half hour appointment to discuss whatever family issues you have and also to consider the most appropriate cost package available.

 

Kevin Lane Could Face Full Appeal Hearing

Kevin Lane could face full appeal hearing

Prisoner who continues to protest innocence, despite completing tariff, has case referred to full court

• Duncan Campbell
• guardian.co.uk, Tuesday 26 March 2013 13.03 GMT

 

Kevin Lane was jailed for life for the 1994 murder of Robert Magill, and given a tariff of eighteen years. As his daily updated website indicates, he has now completed that tariff plus 46 days. However, he has not yet been released because he continues to protest his innocence.

Now Lane has just been told that his case has been "referred to the full court" which means that three judges will finally consider his application for leave to appeal and could, if they find in his favour, move straight to a full appeal hearing, according to his lawyer, Maslen Merchant. There are still public interest immunity issues to be resolved concerning the disclosure of documents relevant to the case before this can go ahead.

Magill was shot dead by a hitman in Chorleywood, Hertfordshire, as he was walking his dog. Two men fled the scene in a BMW car. Lane and another man, Roger Vincent, eventually stood trial. Vincent was cleared but Lane was convicted and jailed. He has been protesting his innocence ever since. Central to his appeal is the conduct of former Detective Inspector Christopher Spackman, who was a key officer in the case and who was subsequently convicted in 2003 at the Old Bailey of conspiracy to steal £160,000 from the police and misconduct in a public office.

In 2011, the court of appeal ordered the Criminal Cases Review Commission (CCRC) to investigate aspects of the case and report back to them. "What cannot be gainsaid is that Mr Spackman … interfered in the criminal justice system," Lane's barrister, Joel Bannathan QC, told the hearing. According to the CCRC, a response was given to the court last October.

Lane is currently in HMP Wolds in Yorkshire and is hopeful that his case will finally be resolved before another year ticks by on his website.
 

Budget 2013: Osborne offers homebuyers Help to Buy

Help to Buy scheme offers buyers with a 5% deposit an interest-free loan of up to 20% of the value of most new homes

 

• Rupert Jones
• The Guardian, Wednesday 20 March 2013 14.24 GMT

 

Homebuyers can borrow up to 20% of most new-build properties, interest-free, for five years. Photograph: Christopher Thomond for the Guardian

A £3.5bn investment in government loans to financially stretched homebuyers and a £12bn scheme to increase the availability of mortgages to people who cannot afford a large deposit were unveiled by the chancellor "to support a new generation in realising the dream of home ownership".

 

The two measures were the centrepiece of a package of financial support for the housing market, and aim to provide assistance to first-time buyers and those "trapped" in their existing homes and unable to take the next step up the property ladder.

 

In his budget speech, George Osborne launched Help to Buy, which is, in effect, an expansion of two existing initiatives. Under the loans scheme, a buyer hoping to purchase a newly built home will be able to take out a mortgage for just 75% of the cost of the property, provided they can stump up a 5% deposit.

 

Those who qualify will be eligible for an "equity loan" worth up to 20% of the value of the property, funded by the government, which will be interest-free for the first five years.

 

This £3.5bn scheme will run for three years from 1 April and help up to 74,000 buyers, as well as providing a boost to the construction sector, said the Treasury. These figures suggest the government loan will on average be worth just over £47,000, and assume a typical buyer will be putting down a deposit of about £11,800.

 

The loans scheme is an expansion of an existing scheme called First Buy, which went live in 2011, but the new version is open to those looking to move up the housing ladder, as well as first-time buyers. It also has fewer restrictions than First Buy; the maximum property price that will be considered is £600,000 and there is no cap on the maximum amount someone can earn to be eligible.

 

However, buyers need to be aware that after the first five years, an annual fee of 1.75% will be levied on the government loan, and this fee will then rise annually by retail prices index (RPI) inflation plus 1% after that. The government says the equity loan can be repaid at any time, or on the sale of the property.

 

Buyers will be able to access the scheme via participating housebuilders – likely to include most or all of the major names – and "Home Buy agents", those appointed by the government to provide a point of contact for those wishing to access affordable home ownership.

 

The other part of Help to Buy involves the introduction of a new "mortgage guarantee" to enable more people to obtain a home loan without the need for a prohibitively large deposit. The government will make available £12bn of guarantees to lenders, which it said should be enough to support £130bn of high "loan-to-value" (LTV) mortgages. That could translate into around 300,000 mortgages over three years, according to one expert.

 

The LTV is the maximum the mortgage company will lend someone who wants a particular home loan, expressed as a percentage of the value of the property, and the problem has been that most of the lowest interest rates are on mortgages of no more than 60% of the value of the property, with only a smattering of more expensive deals around for people who want to borrow 90% or 95%.

 

This scheme will run for three years from January 2014 and see the government give lenders who offer mortgages to people with a deposit of between 5% and 20% the chance to buy a guarantee on the high LTV portion of the mortgage. That means if a borrower's property were repossessed, the government would cover a chunk of the losses suffered by the lender.

 

This scheme is available to home movers as well as first-time-buyers, and on both newbuild homes and existing properties worth up to £600,000. Buyers will still need to put down a deposit of 5%.

 

However, it remains to be seen how much lenders will have to pay for the guarantees – and how competitive the mortgage deals will be when they become available in January. The Council of Mortgage Lenders warned that if the cost was too high, this could make the scheme uneconomical.

 

Hugh Wade-Jones at the mortgage broker Enness Private Clients welcomed the guarantee scheme. "The UK has been one of the few countries with a developed property market where lending is not controlled or underpinned in some way by the government.

 

"By effectively underwriting loans, the government is putting its money where its mouth is by easing the risk for banks providing higher loan to values to customers. This will have a particular impact on helping first-time buyers, which is the foundation of the entire market."

Case study: the builder

For Mark Suggitt, the owner of a small housebuilding firm on the south coast, the unexpected boost to the property market unveiled in Wednesday's budget represented a much needed fillip for one of the industries that has been hit hardest by the credit crunch and its aftermath.

 

The 49-year-old had hoped for more government assistance for those trying to get a foot on the property ladder, and welcomed yesterday's measures for homebuyers. The multibillion-pound Help-to-Buy scheme includes a mortgage guarantee incentivising lenders to offer home loans to people with small deposits, and a £3.5bn investment in interest-free loans to buyers.

 

Suggitt was upbeat about the guarantee scheme, which he said would help people move up the housing chain. However, he was disappointed that the loans scheme was only for new-build homes. "It's a shame it's just on new properties and not good-quality housing in general," he said. He added: "Big developers will tend to offer selected new homes for this scheme. First-time buyers should use the scheme to buy the best-value-for-money properties on the market."

 

Suggitt described conditions in the housebuilding business as "challenging" and said that since the recession began, his firm, based in Hastings, East Sussex, had been concentrating on building larger, "top-end" properties. These typically go on the market for between £800,000 and £1m.

 

The father-of-three acknowledges that this sort of price tag will be out of reach for many local people, but says there are people moving from London whose housebuying budget in the capital would buy them a house on the south coast double the size of a London purchase.

 

His firm, N L Suggitt & Sons, typically builds two to three properties a year, and usually has up to 12 people on site.

 

Suggitt was pleased to see measures to help small businesses, including the employment allowance, which takes the first £2,000 off the employer national insurance bill of every company in the country. Around 450,000 small businesses – one third of all employers – will pay no employer national insurance at all once the employment allowance is introduced in April next year.

 

 

HADGKISS HUGHES AND BEALE

SOLICITORS

 83 ALCESTER ROAD, MOSELEY,

BIRMINGHAM B13 8EB

 TELEPHONE: 0121 449 5050

 

Email enquiries to: AnneNorton@hhb-mo.co.uk

 

www.hadgkisshughesandbeale.co.uk

 

 

 

Happy St. Patrick's Day

 

Happy Saint Patrick's Day from all at

Hadgkiss Hughes and Beale solicitors

 

For details of celebrations in Birmingham
log on to:

 

 http://www.stpatricksbirmingham.com/

 



 

 

HADGKISS HUGHES AND BEALE

SOLICITORS

 83 ALCESTER ROAD, MOSELEY,

BIRMINGHAM B13 8EB

TELEPHONE: 0121 449 5050

 

Email enquiries to:

enquiries@hhb-mo.co.uk

 

www.hadgkisshughesandbeale.co.uk

Kevin Lane Conviction Referred To Full Court

 

11 March 2013 Last updated at 11:51  

Kevin Lane murder conviction going to Court of Appeal

By Sally Chidzoy Home Affairs Correspondent, BBC Look East

Kevin Lane claims he was framed for the murder of Robert Magill

The case of a man jailed 18 years ago for the murder of a car dealer in Hertfordshire is to be heard by the Court of Appeal.

Kevin Lane was found guilty of using a shotgun to kill Robert Magill in Chorleywood in 1994.

Lane now hopes his conviction could be overturned when appeal judges hear the concerns raised about a police officer on his case, who was later jailed.

The Criminal Cases Review Commission (CCRC) has also looked at the case.

Lane's solicitor Maslen Merchant told the BBC: "This is a significant development in what has been a long and arduous journey for Kevin and his legal team."

Mr Magill was walking his dog when two contract killers got out of their BMW armed with a shotgun.

A trial heard it was Lane, who has always protested his innocence, who pulled the trigger five times.

There was no evidence directly placing Lane at the murder scene and the weapon used to kill Mr Magill was never found.

Lane's family and friends have continued to support him in his fight to clear his name and win his release.

His mother Barbara Tucker, 66, from Bletchley, said she was "lost for words" at the news of an appeal hearing. "The family's so excited, Kevin has worked so very hard for this but we can't count our chickens. We're all keeping our fingers crossed," she said.

Involved in the police investigation into Lane was a corrupt officer, Det Insp Chris Spackman.

He was later jailed for plotting to steal £160,000 from Hertfordshire Police. It was money seized from criminals.

Spackman handled disclosure evidence in Lane's case and had contact with other suspects and informants.

Questions have since been raised about his handling of Lane's case and new sources have spoken to BBC Look East.

One source in criminal circles has told the BBC that an informant "had it in" for Lane.

"The informant has had a grudge with Kevin for a very long time, the same as the informant has had a grudge against Robert Magill," said the source.

"He laughed it was his revenge, somebody had done his dirty work for him with Bob: he hated him with a vengeance."

Local criminals Roger Vincent and David Smith were initially arrested for killing Mr Magill. Lane was arrested later.

Smith was released but Vincent was charged along with Lane. The judge directed Vincent's acquittal and so Lane stood trial alone.

  

“This was clearly a murder by very serious criminals, and did Kevin fall into that category?”

 Car dealer Robert Magill was walking his dog when he was shot

The jury could not agree a verdict, but Lane was convicted at a retrial.

Justice campaigner Bob Woffindon

Author and miscarriage of justice campaigner Bob Woffindon said: "This was clearly a murder by very serious criminals, and did Kevin fall into that category?

"I think Kevin probably didn't. In the years since... various factors have come into the case to throw even more doubt and of course there was the conviction of the policeman.

"It was subsequently said at the Court of Appeal that he [Spackman] carried out complicated deceptions within a police environment."

Nine years after the shooting of Mr Magill, drug dealer Dave King was the victim of a similar gangland shooting outside a gym in Hoddesdon.

In August 2005 Roger Vincent, then 33, and David Smith, also 33, were found guilty at Luton Crown Court of his murder.

However, both have strongly denied being involved in Mr Magill's killing.

The BBC has spoken to sources, including those linked to the police.

'Extensively reviewed'

One source said he had concerns about the way the case was handled by Spackman.

The BBC could not make contact with the former police officer.

Hertfordshire Police said: "All we can say about the management of police informants is there are very tight and regulated procedures and processes in place to protect the integrity of the system.

"The case against Kevin Lane has been extensively reviewed already and the conviction deemed safe."

Police added that every case in which Spackman had been involved had been thoroughly scrutinised.

One conviction was quashed after the case was ruled to be unsafe.

Lane says he will go on protesting his innocence until somebody listens. A year ago, he pleaded with the CCRC to consider his case for a third time.

A spokesman for the CCRC said it had reviewed the case twice under Lane's instruction, before he applied for an appeal, and could find no grounds for it to be heard.

It was conducting a third review but this could not be completed because Mr Lane then applied directly to the Court of Appeal.

The court then instructed the CCRC to look at "particular points" as part of the appeal process and it sent its report to the Court of Appeal last October for it to consider.

A date for the appeal hearing has yet to be fixed.

Senior Judge Voices Fears Over Legal Aid cuts

 

 

Britain's top judge Lord Neuberger, the Supreme Court President, attacks Government on legal aid cuts and human rights threats

President of Supreme Court says equality before the law is at risk of disappearing

Terri Judd

Tuesday 05 March 2013

 

 

The Government is in danger of destroying a 700-year-old right of access to fair and open justice to all, the most senior judge in the land has said.

 

Challenging plans to cut back dramatically on legal aid for hundreds of thousands of people from April, Lord Neuberger of Abbotsbury said: "As one of the three remaining articles of the Magna Carta (1297) says "to no man shall we deny justice", nowadays "to no man and no woman shall we deny justice", and we are at risk of going back on that."

 

In a week when both the Justice Secretary, Chris Grayling, and the Home Secretary, Theresa May, have attacked human rights legislation, proposing a distancing from the European Court of Human Rights (ECHR), Lord Neuberger added that he was uncomfortable with political attacks on the judiciary and the fact that human rights were gaining an unfair reputation.

 

The former Master of the Rolls, speaking out for the first time since his appointment as President of the Supreme Court, the highest court in the United Kingdom, said :"The two fundamental roles of Government are to defend the country from invasion and ensure the rule of law at home, and that includes access to justice."

 

He aired particular fears about the fact that from next month thousands of people will no longer have access to free legal advice for issues such as many family disputes, employment or immigration cases, and debt or housing problems. In an attempt to cut the legal-aid bill by £270m, the Government has withdrawn funding for numerous categories of civil and family law and, by its own estimates, as many as 585,000 people will be affected.

 

Lord Neuberger said his main worry was that those who could not afford to pay for a legal representative would have to rely on free advice being offered by the Government and charities, which was "second best". In the worst cases, he fears that those frustrated by an inability to seek justice would "take the law into their own hands".

 

While sympathising with the Government's need to cut costs, he questioned whether slashing legal-aid budgets would eventually prove to be a false saving. "Litigants representing themselves take much more time in court. The danger is that what you save on legal-aid budgets, you lose in terms of court efficiency. It will lead to longer delays in court hearings and spending more money on courts."

 

The Government has been at loggerheads with Strasbourg over a series of judgments, including blocking the deportation of the radical cleric Abu Qatada and ruling that some prisoners must be given the vote.

 

Lord Neuberger explained that while he understood some of the objections to ECHR rulings, a system as "broad and far-reaching as human rights" was bound to generate some controversy and some tough decisions.

 

"The problem is the devil is in the detail in hard cases where it is difficult to balance competing rights," he said. "I can see the argument of sending them [terrorist suspects] back if they are a threat to this country. But if you send somebody back knowing they are going to be tortured, it makes you responsible for torture."

 

He said it was hard to foresee whether such criticism of Europe would rebound on the UK judiciary: "It is difficult to predict whether, if they are busy attacking judges in Strasbourg, they will happily attack any judge or if they will focus their attacks on foreign judges."

 

Nevertheless, he added: "From time to time Home Secretaries have attacked individual judicial decisions. It is unfortunate and should not happen. It is not good for the system.

 

"If ministers don't like our decisions they have two options, one is to appeal; and if they don't like the result, they can change the law by statute.

 

"When ministers attack judges it risks bringing judges into disrepute – which does nobody any good – and it is unfair because judges cannot answer back. It is bad for the whole constitutional state when different arms start attacking each other."

 

A spokesman for the Ministry of Justice said: "At around £2bn a year, we have one of the most expensive legal-aid systems in the world. We firmly believe it is an essential part of the justice system, but can never lose sight of the fact it is paid for by taxpayers, and resources are not limitless. We recognise that the advice sector plays an important role in the legal system and we have recently made available £65m in funding for eligible organisations."

 

The Government's drastic cut backs concerning Legal Aid are considered to be extreme and a step too far in the eyes of the Family Department at Hadgkiss Hughes & Beale.

 

The full impact will not be felt until after April 2013 when the changes come into force and only time will tell.

 

For further information please contact Hardip Lall HardipLall@hhb-mo.co.uk or

Katie Ward KatieWard@hhb-mo.co.uk

 

HADGKISS HUGHES AND BEALE

SOLICITORS

FAMILY LAW

83 ALCESTER ROAD, MOSELEY,
BIRMINGHAM B13 8EB

TELEPHONE: 0121 449 5050 

Email enquiries to: family@hhb-mo.co.uk

 www.hadgkisshughesandbeale.co.uk