The Eric Whitehead Partnership

In March 2005, the House of Lords decided, in the case of R v Benthem, that a person’s fingers could not amount to an imitation firearm, whatever their appearance. The Lords held that the Defendant’s fingers were a part of him and were not in his possession. In the recent case of R v Konzani, it was held that a person knowingly suffering from a sexually transmittable disease is guilty of GBH if there was no informed consent and if the disease is transmitted. In Konzani, the Defendant was a man who knew that he was HIV positive but who did not use a condom. In the case of R v Dica (September 2005), the Court of Appeal held that a sentence of four and a half years in prison for inflicting GBH in such a manner was not excessive. In the case of R (Traves) v DPP, it was held that a Defendant...

From early 2007, the Government proposes that anyone wishing to sell their property will need to be in possession of a “Home Information Pack” (HIP). The HIP will be brought into existence by the Housing Act 2004 and will herald the dawn of a new era in conveyancing transactions. It is envisaged that HIPs will be prepared by the person whose job it is to market the property (ie, normally, the estate agent) and the underlying purpose behind the HIP is to ensure that important information in respect of the property being sold is made available at the very beginning of the conveyancing transaction, rather than half way through, thereby drastically speeding up the whole process and reducing the risk of the deal collapsing. The HIP is likely to include the following documents, most of which...