Issue 458  11th July 2026

A year on from its launch in the West Midlands in June 2025, the Early Victims’ Right to Review (VRR) scheme is now being rolled out to every CPS Area across England and Wales from 13July 2026, the Solicitor General, Ellie Reeves KC MP, has confirmed. Following the successful expansion across four CPS Areas, West Midlands, North West, Yorkshire and Humberside, and Cymru-Wales, the national rollout marks the next step in transforming how the justice system treats victims of rape and serious sexual offences. The national rollout gives victims of rape or serious sexual abuse the right for their case to be reviewed by a different prosecutor before any final decision is made, meaning the chance to continue proceedings is still available. If that prosecutor disagrees with the original decision, the case will continue...

The statutory instrument (SI) introducing changes to the Advocates’ Graduated Fee Scheme (AGFS) has been laid today. It will come into effect for cases with a representation order dated on or after 28 July 2026.

What will the increases be?

The SI introduces the following changes:

• an increase to the fixed fee for additional preparation from £62 to £81
• the extension of the additional preparation fee to guilty plea cases
• a reduction in the number of trial days needed to qualify for a wasted preparation claim, from five to two

New Home Office figures reveal the number of knife murders across the UK has dropped by 27% in two years. Overall knife crime has been cut by 10% and more than 1,900 knives were removed from the streets in the same time span. Meanwhile, in the 2025 to 2026 period, 2,833 county lines were closed and 7,381 people were arrested - with the Home Office saying this is the "best year on record" for its county lines programme. The initiative was created in 2019 to tackle gangs using children and vulnerable people to take drugs from cities into small towns...

Ruth Ellis, the last woman to be executed in the UK, has been granted a posthumous conditional pardon. Ellis was hanged at London's Holloway Prison in 1955 after being convicted of murdering her lover David Blakely. Her family have campaigned for her murder conviction to be overturned, arguing she was a victim of domestic abuse and was physically and emotionally abused by Blakely before shooting him. Deputy Prime Minister David Lammy told MPs the King had granted the pardon, saying that the death penalty had been replaced with a sentence of life imprisonment...

More than 1,600 magistrates were appointed in 2025/26 with 655 new recruits added in the first quarter of this year, the government has announced. The increase means an additional 2,312 new magistrates have joined since April 2025. As of March 2026, 15,259 volunteers have been appointed as magistrates. But, while appointments have increased, hundreds have left the magistracy meaning that the net increase in numbers is 'just over 600', the Magistrates’ Association said. The government has previously said it wants to have a 21,000-strong magistracy by 2030. The Magistrates’ Association said if recruitment and people leaving the magistracy continue at this rate, it would take nine years to reach the government’s target. Earlier this year, the government sought to recruit more than 2,000 additional magistrates in the next financial years...

Under reforms set out in the government’s Courts and Tribunals Bill, magistrates' sentencing powers will be extended up to 18 months or 24 months imprisonment for single and multiple triable-way offences. The increase in sentencing powers will mean more cases can be heard, tried and sentenced in the magistrates’ court. Currently, magistrates’ sentencing powers are limited to 12 months. Figures for January to March 2026 show the open caseload in the magistrates’ court was 370,222 – an 11% increase on the previous year (333,194) and up 2% on the previous quarter (364,779)...

Vulnerable children with a parent in prison will be recognised earlier and better supported under Government efforts to give every child the best start in life. A new scheme launching this summer will join up information held across public services – including prisons, police and local councils. This will mean, for the first time, police forces will share information with local authorities in targeted areas about parents who have gone into prison, and government will bring together existing data to share it with local authorities, meaning children and families get the vital support to health, education and social services. An estimated 193,000 children in England and Wales have a parent in prison each year, which can have long-lasting impacts on their schooling, mental health and future job prospects as they grow up.

Currently information is fragmented and split across services meaning children are too often at risk of falling through the cracks and missing out on support that puts them on the backfoot through no fault of their own. The scheme will initially target areas with high rates of parental imprisonment, learning from what works, with an ambition to roll out across more areas of the country – delivering on a manifesto commitment to better support children with a parent in custody...

...The Home Secretary has been given new counter-terrorism style powers to target groups working at the behest of, or in the interests of, foreign states to carry out acts which threaten the UK’s security and the safety of communities across the country. This could include attacks against particular communities, targeting of dissidents on UK soil, or cyber attacks on critical national infrastructure. Foreign state organisations and state linked groups involved in this activity can now be designated by the Home Secretary. This gives the police and intelligence agencies stronger tools and powers to disrupt and deter those working on their behalf...

It is now a criminal offence to express support for a designated organisation, meaning those who glorify and encourage their malign activity will face prosecution. It is also now an offence to assist or receive payment from a designated organisation – ensuring foreign states who seek to hide their involvement in hostile activity behind proxy groups, such as organised crime gangs and front companies, will find it far more difficult to do so. These offences build on the National Security Act 2023, enabling proxy groups, when designated, to be treated in the same way as foreign intelligence services, so their harmful acts can be disrupted...

Police officers who put themselves in harm’s way to protect their communities will get access to expanded crucial services to help them deal with the demands of working in dangerous and traumatic environments. Officers fighting crime in their communities put their lives at risk every day and are repeatedly exposed to traumatic incidents in high-pressure environments. The consequences can be extremely damaging for their physical and mental health. Post-traumatic stress disorder and other mental health conditions are highly prevalent amongst frontline officers.

Around 150,000 clinical psychological risk assessments and ‘lighter touch’ mental health checks will be available each year for officers and staff in operational roles, signposting them quickly to the best support when they need it most. New guidance will help forces to roll out trauma tracking systems to record officer and staff exposure to traumatic incidents. This will help senior leaders to identify and support those at the highest risk at an early stage, so they are not left to manage the effects of repeated trauma alone...