History of English criminal law

The first signs of the modern distinction between criminal and civil proceedings were during the Norman conquest of England in 1066.[1] The earliest criminal trials had very little, if any, settled law to apply. However, the civil delictual law was highly developed and consistent in its operation (except where the King wanted to raise money by selling a new form of Writ).

A local lord of the manor (or family) could hold their servants and tenants responsible in a manorial court and was among wealthy people who could more easily enlist the help of a county or city bailiff, posse comitatus if one existed and the justices of the peace. The sheriff was the often-armed representative of the king in a city, town or shire, responsible for collecting taxes and enforcing his laws. The church could hold ecclesiastical courts to resolve offences in its canon law and on its narrow territorial jurisdiction.

Justice for crimes sought in older forums and by private prosecution declined—instead the state courts, and increasingly the state paying lawyers to prosecute became the normal route to justice for matters that conceivably affect or endanger the community at large. In the 18th century European countries began operating police forces; in 1829 the first force formed in England which began its own prosecutions. Consequently criminal law had a more harmonised way of enforcement.

Crown Prosecution
Main article: Crown Prosecution Service § History

Historically in England, with no police forces and no prosecution service, the only route to prosecution was through private prosecutions brought by victims at their own expense or lawyers acting on their behalf. From 1829, as the police forces were formed, they began to take on the burden of bringing prosecutions against suspected criminals.[2]

Sir John Maule was appointed to be the first Director of Public Prosecutions for England and Wales in 1880, operating under the Home Office; his jurisdiction was only for decisions as to whether to prosecute in a very small number of difficult or important cases; once prosecution had been authorised, the matter was turned over to the Treasury Solicitor. Police forces continued to be responsible for the bulk of cases, sometimes referring difficult ones to the Director.[2]

In 1962 a Royal Commission recommended that police forces set up independent prosecution departments so as to avoid having the same officers investigate and prosecute cases, although technically the prosecuting police officers did so as private citizens. The Royal Commission's recommendation was not implemented by all police forces, however, and so in 1978, another Royal Commission was set up, this time headed by Sir Cyril Philips. It reported in 1981, recommending that a single unified Crown Prosecution Service with responsibility for all public prosecutions in England and Wales be set up. A White Paper was released in 1983, becoming the Prosecution of Offences Act 1985, which established the CPS under the direction of the Director of Public Prosecutions, consisting of a merger of his old department with the existing police prosecution departments. It began in 1986.

Common law offences
Main article: Common law offence

Abolished offences

The following common law offences once existed, but are now statutory, part of other statutory offences, or completely abolished.

See also criminal libel for general information about the common law libel offences listed above.

Offences held no longer to exist or never to have existed
  • Effecting a public mischief
  • Conspiracy to effect a public mischief

Offences against the person
Main article: Offence against the person

Fatal offences

Extant offences

Abolished offences

Sexual offences
Main article: Sexual offences in the United Kingdom

Extant offences

Abolished offences

Non-fatal non-sexual offences

Offences against property
Main article: Property crime

Extant offences

Abolished offences

Firearms and offensive weapons
See also: Gun law, Gun politics in the United Kingdom, and Offensive weapon

Forgery, personation and cheating

Abolished offences

See forgery:

See personation:

  • Offences under section 13 of the Customs and Excise Management Act 1979
  • Offences under section 12 of the Inland Revenue Regulation Act 1890

(Both repealed by the Commissioners for Revenue and Customs Act 2005)

See cheating:

Offences against the State or Crown or Government and political offences

Abolished offences

Harmful or dangerous drugs

Offences against religion and public worship

Abolished offences

Offences against the administration of public justice

Abolished offences

Offences held no longer to exist or never to have existed
  • In 1954, the judgment of the Queen's Bench in the case of R v Newland contraindicated the offence of effecting a public mischief,[21] whereas in Shaw v DPP (1960), the House of Lords ruled that indeed it had existed and continued to exist.[22]
  • Conspiracy to effect a public mischief[23]

Public order offences

Abolished offences

Offences against public morals and public policy

Abolished offences

Protection of children and vulnerable adults

Protection of animals and the environment

See Cruelty to animals#United Kingdom and Environmental crime

Road traffic and motor vehicle offences
Main article: United Kingdom traffic laws

Participatory offences
See also: Accomplice, Aid and abet, and Inchoate offenses

Abolished offences
  • Incitement
  • Accessory to felony: Secondary principal/Principal in the second degree, Accessory before the fact, Accessory after the fact

Classification of offences

Abolished classes

Defences

Abolished defences

Procedure

Abolished proceedings
  • Criminal information
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See also

References

[2]

  • Hale, Matthew. Historia Placitorum Coronæ (History of the Pleas of the Crown) (1736).
  • Stephen, Sir James Fitzjames. History of the Criminal Law of England (1883).
  • Radzinowicz, Sir Leon. A History of English Criminal Law and Its Administration from 1750. 5 volumes. 1948 to 1990.
  • John Hostettler. A History of Criminal Justice in England and Wales. Waterside Press. 2009. Google Books
  • John Hamilton Baker. An Introduction to English Legal History. Third Edition. Butterworths. 1990. Chapters 28 and 29.
  • John Hamilton Baker, "Pleas of the Crown" (1978) 94 Selden Society annual volumes 299
  • J M Kaye et al. "The Making of English Criminal Law" (1977 to 1978) Criminal Law Review
  • John G Bellamy. Criminal Law and Society in Late Medieval and Tudor England. Alan Sutton. 1984. Google Books
  • Edward Powell. Kingship, Law, and Society: Criminal Justice in the Reign of Henry V. Clarendon Press. Oxford. 1989. Google Books
  • John H Langbein. Prosecuting Crime in the Renaissance: England, Germany France. Harvard University Press. 1974. Google Books. Lawbook Exchange. Clark, New Jersey. 2005. Google Books
  • J S Cockburn (ed). Crime in England 1550–1800. Meuthen. 1977. Google Books
  • J. M. Beattie. Crime and the Courts in England 1660–1800. OUP. 1986. Google Books
  • David Bentley. English Criminal Justice in the 19th Century. Hambledon Press. 1998. Google Books
  • John G Bellamy. The Criminal Trial in Later Medieval England. University of Toronto Press. 1998. Google Books
  1. see, Pennington, Kenneth (1993) The Prince and the Law, 1200–1600: Sovereignty and Rights in the Western Legal Tradition, University of California Press
  2. The Crown Prosecution Service: History, The National Archives, archived from the original on 5 February 2007, retrieved 9 June 2014
  3. Abolished by the Offences against the Person Act 1828
  4. Abolished by section 11(1) of the Criminal Damage Act 1971
  5. Abolished by section 32(1)(a) of the Theft Act 1968
  6. Abolished by section 13 of the Forgery and Counterfeiting Act 1981
  7. Abolished by 73(a) of the Coroners and Justice Act 2009
  8. Abolished by the Criminal Law Act 1967
  9. Abolished by section 9(1) of the Public Order Act 1986
  10. Abolished by 73(b) of the Coroners and Justice Act 2009
  11. Abolished by 73(c) of the Coroners and Justice Act 2009
  12. Abolished by section 79(1) of the Criminal Justice and Immigration Act 2008
  13. Abolished by section 59 of the Serious Crime Act 2007
  14. Abolished by the Criminal Law Act 1967, section 13(1)(a)
  15. Abolished by section 17(1)(a) of the Bribery Act 2010
  16. Abolished by section 13(1) of the Criminal Law Act 1977
  17. Abolished by section 6(1) of the Criminal Attempts Act 1981
  18. Abolished by section 5 of the Criminal Law Act 1977
  19. The statutory provisions that created this offence were repealed by the Theft Act 1968: Griew, Edward. The Theft Acts 1968 and 1978. Fifth Edition. Sweet and Maxwell. 1986. Paragraph 2-01 at page 12.
  20. Repealed by paragraph 95 of Schedule 4 to, and Schedule 17 to, the Serious Organised Crime and Police Act 2005
  21. R v Newland [1954] 1 QB 158, 37 Cr App R 154, CCA: held, no longer to exist, if it ever had
  22. Shaw v DPP, H.L.(E.) 1960 Archived 2017-06-19 at the Wayback Machine
  23. DPP v Withers [1975] AC 842, HL: Held not to be an offence known to law
  24. Repealed by section 17(3) of, and Schedule 2 to, the Bribery Act 2010
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