In this article, we consider appeals against sentence from the Crown Court to the Court of Appeal. The appeal process can be complicated depending on the individual case, but here we outline the basics.

When the Director of Public Prosecutions writes to a national newspaper and apologises for a prosecution failure in an individual case, you know that something significant went wrong. Before exploring that however, it might be thought a great pity that she chose to write to a newspaper and not the actual person wrongly accused of rape.

We talk a lot in the United Kingdom about the benefits of a jury trial, about how leaving the decision in the hands of 12 people chosen at random, is perhaps fairest way of determining justice. But how exactly does a jury decide?