BOOK REVIEW

BLACKSTONE’S CRIMINAL PRACTICE 2015
RULES AND GUIDELINES
Criminal Procedure Rules 2014, Criminal Practice Directions, Sentencing Guidelines

General Editor: Professor David Ormerod QC
Consultant Editor: HHJ John Phillips CBE
And a team of expert contributors

Oxford University Press

ISBN: 978 0 19874 632 4

www.oup.com


ESSENTIAL FOR ALL LAWYERS AND ADVOCATES AT THE CRIMINAL BAR – AND JUDGES TOO

An appreciation by Phillip Taylor MBE and Elizabeth Taylor of Richmond Green Chambers

Every criminal barrister should beg, buy or borrow ‘Blackstone’s Criminal Practice 2015 Rules and Guidelines’-- preferably buy it because it is the ultimate statement on rules, PDs and sentencing all in one place.

This title is none other than the new companion volume to the main annual work “Blackstone’s Criminal Practice” and therefore Blackstone’s (and OUP’s) version of the Rules. It contains the complete text of the Criminal Procedure Rules 2014 and the Criminal Practice Directions, as well as the Sentencing Guidelines as at 6 April 2015, which takes up just over half the book.

Published by the Oxford University Press, it can be used as a stand-alone, easy-access reference. Produced with the needs of the hard-pressed practitioner in mind, it incorporates recent organizational changes, the most notable being that the Criminal Procedure Rules and the relevant Practice Directions are presented as a single integrated document, with each rule followed by its accompanying practice direction.

While it can certainly be used on its own, (depending on the nature of the case) many practitioners will like the idea of having a separate volume of rules and guidelines to accompany the usual practice book they take with them to court. Equally, it is a great help to judges who will appreciate the convenience of having all pertinent information to hand with this volume which is easy to navigate.

Legal researchers and students too, will appreciate the extensive tables of cases… statutes… statutory instruments… practice directions… codes of conduct… guidelines… protocols and circulars… and European legislation. There is also a table of international treaties and conventions and other legal instruments, plus a detailed index for easier reference.

This authoritative work however is more than a book. Produced by an expert team of contributors under the editorship of David Ormerod QC, it incorporates a service designed to provide busy practitioners with easy access to the latest developments.

A most important additional tool is that it has a companion website which provides free monthly updates and other digital services – and you can also register to receive “Blackstone’s Criminal Practice Update”, a quarterly newsletter, also free.

This is a book that is, without question, invaluable for use by all criminal practitioners at all levels of the criminal courts. It has already quickly become a widely held view that no criminal practitioner should be without it.

The publication date is cited as at 2015.

свернуть