Legal Developments 2025
Legislation
The Firearms (Amendment) Rules 2025 (SI 2025 No.914) [Link]
This SI is in force from 5th August 2025. The Explanatory Note to the SI states (among other things) that “Rule 2(2) increases the number of referees required in support of an application for the grant or renewal of a shotgun certificate from one to two”, that Rule 2(4) replaces the existing application form for a grant or renewal of a firearm or shotgun certificate with the requirement for an application “to be supported by two referees and seeks information on the applicant’s neuro-developmental conditions and time spent abroad”, and that Rule 2(5) provides a new form for registration or for a new certificate as a firearms dealer and which “seeks information on the applicant’s
neuro-developmental conditions and time spent abroad”.
The Criminal Procedure Rules 2025 (SI 2025 No. 909) [Link]
This SI is in force from 6th October 2025.
The Global Irregular Migration and Trafficking in Persons Sanctions Regulations 2025 [Link]
This SI is in force from the 23rd July 2025. The Explanatory Note to the Regulations state (among other matters) that “These Regulations are made under the Sanctions and Anti-Money Laundering Act 2018 (c. 13) to establish a sanctions regime for the purpose of preventing and combating people smuggling, trafficking in persons and the instrumentalisation of migration for the purpose of destabilising a country. ”
The Proceeds of Crime (Money Laundering) (Threshold Amount) (Amendment) Order 2025
This SI is explained in its Explanatory Note: “This Order increases from £1,000 to £3,000 the threshold amounts specified in section 339A(2) and (6A) of the Proceeds of Crime Act 2002 (c. 29) (“POCA”). The threshold amount in section 339A(2) is the value of criminal property below which a bank or similar firm (a deposit-taking body, electronic money institution or payment institution) can carry out a transaction, in operating an account for a customer, without committing one of the money laundering offences in sections 327 to 329 of POCA. The threshold in section 339A(2) was raised from £250 to £1,000 by the Proceeds of Crime (Money Laundering) (Threshold Amount) Order 2022 (S.I. 2022/1355). The threshold amount in section 339A(6A) is the value of criminal property below which a person carrying on business in the regulated sector (as defined in Part 1 of Schedule 9 to POCA) can return money or other property to a customer or client, in order to end their business relationship, without committing one of the money laundering offences in sections 327 to 329 of POCA”: see [Link]
The Criminal Justice Act 1988 (Offensive Weapons) (Amendment, Surrender and Compensation) (England and Wales) Order 2025
This SI makes provision in respect of so-called “ninja swords”; see [Link]
The Firearms Act 2023 (Commencement) Regulations 2025
Section 1 (miniature rifle ranges and shooting galleries), and section 2 (possessing component parts of ammunition with intent to manufacture), of the FA 2023 came into force on 1 May 2025; see [Link]
Proceeds of Crime Act 2002 (References to Financial Investigators) (England and Wales and Northern Ireland) (Amendment) Order 2025 (SI 2025 No. 537)
The instrument comes into force on 27 May 2025 [see Link].
Cases
R v Hayes; R v Palombo [2025] UKSC 29 [Link]
At paras.7 and 8 in the judgment, the Court said, “The question posed by the LIBOR and EURIBOR definitions required a bank on the contributor panel of banks to submit the rate at which that bank (in the case of LIBOR), or a prime bank (in the case of EURIBOR), could borrow money at the time of the submission. The identification of this rate required a qualitative assessment of various data sources and was a matter of subjective opinion rather than empirical fact. Whether a submission was genuine or honest did not turn on how a court construes the LIBOR and EURIBOR definitions. It turned on the state of mind of the submitter and whether the stated opinion of the borrowing rate was one which that person actually held. That is a question of fact which, in a criminal trial, is the province of the jury and not the judge.
8. It was wrong for the judge to direct the jury that, if the submitter took any account of the commercial interests of the bank or a trader, the rate submitted was for that reason not a genuine or honest answer to the question posed by the definitions as a matter of law. The law could not dictate whether or not the answer given represented the submitter’s genuine opinion. …” (per Lord Leggatt (with whom Lord Reed, Lord Hodge, Lord Lloyd-Jones and Lady Simler agreed)).
Ayinde, R (on the application of) v The London Borough of Haringey [2025] EWHC 1383 (Admin) [Link]
This is an important decision that arose “out of the actual or suspected use by lawyers of generative artificial intelligence tools to produce written legal arguments or witness statements which are not then checked, so that false information (typically a fake citation or quotation) is put before the court”. In the appendix to the judgment, the Court gave many instances, “in countries around the world, of material being put before a court that is generated by an artificial intelligence tool, but which is erroneous” ([83] to [102]). The extent to which this has occurred, is alarming.
R v Jason Russo & Ors [2025] EWCA Crim 169 [Link]
In this important case, the Court of Appeal (Criminal Division) rejected the submissions made by the appellants that (in effect) an offence of conspiracy to commit an offence contrary to section 46 of the Serious Crime Act 2007 was unknown to the law by a parity of reasoning with the decision in Kenning [2008] EWCA Crim 1534. In Russo, the CACD held that the s.46 SCA offence is distinct from aiding and abetting an offence and from attempting to commit an offence. It is completed by the doing of the act capable of encouraging or assisting the relevant offence(s). What is done by the person encouraged or assisted is irrelevant. The reasoning in Kenning was inapposite. The CACD also rejected the proposition that the supply of an encrypted means of communication (such as Encrochat) could not assist the substantive offence of supplying a controlled drug (s.4, Misuse of Drugs Act 1971): “The welter of criminal prosecutions for supplying drugs since 2020 based on messaging retrieved from the Encrochat server demonstrates how important Encrochat devices were to those engaged in large scale supply of drugs” (per William Davis LJ, at [20]). In the context of the facts of this case (Russo), the CACD was unconvinced that a charge of conspiracy was necessary. “[An] act” in section 46(1)(a) SCA 2007 was to be read in the light of section 67 of the 2007 Act, which includes a “course of conduct”. Although there is no definition of “a course of conduct” in the 2007 Act, the ordinary English meaning of a course of conduct is a series of acts demonstrating a continuity of purpose. On the facts of this case “as put by the prosecution, the repeated supply of Encrochat devices had the purpose of assisting persons to supply drugs. This purpose continued throughout. In our view the prosecution case properly could have been placed before the jury on the basis of a single substantive count of the offence under section 46 of the 2007 Act. This would have avoided the supposed complications created by a count of conspiracy” (per William Davis LJ, at [22]). The mens rea of the offence of conspiracy as set out in section 1(2) of the Criminal Law Act 1977 Act, namely, intention or knowledge as to the facts and circumstances which comprise the actus reus of the offence which the conspirators have agreed to commit. Section 1(2) and its effect was considered in detail by the House of Lords in Saik [2006] UKHL 18; [2006] 2 Cr App R 26. However, the CACD observed that unlike the offence of money laundering [ss.327-329, POCA], section 46 of the 2007 Act does not refer to knowledge. In any event, the prosecution case was that the only proper inference was that the appellants were fully aware from the outset of the use to which the Encrochat devices were being put. The jury must have concluded that this inference was a proper one. Their verdicts were safe.