The Ministry of Justice has said that courts ‘sat as usual’ today, the first day of a national protest against legal aid fee cuts. However lawyers reported delays and defendants being left unrepresented at courts across England and Wales. As the first day of direct action draws to a close, a spokesman for the MoJ described that the impact of today’s action as ‘negligible’. A statement timed at 5.23pm said: ‘Over 95% of cases at a police station requiring a solicitor have been picked up within an hour – little different to any other day.’ However the Gazette has received numerous accounts of problems at both police stations and magistrates' courts.

Trinity Mirror's chief executive recently questioned how compensation for phone hacking could come close to the amount awarded for deaths caused by wrongdoing. How can compensation for things as different as bereavement and lost privacy be calculated?

The largest criminal legal aid firms have said they will [...]

The Royal Society for the Prevention of Accidents hopes proposals will [...]

The organisation created to run panels of independent whiplash experts [...]