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Serious Crime Bill

by Mark Rowe

Among the planned laws for the last year of the Coalition Government is a Serious Crime Bill. According to the Home Office it’s to provide the new National Crime Agency and others with greater powers to prosecute, deny criminals the proceeds of their illegal activity and tackle cyber crime and the illegal drugs trade.

It includes new powers to reduce the threat posed by UK citizens and residents returning home after taking part in the conflict in Syria. The Bill builds on the Serious and Organised Crime Strategy, as published in October 2013. According to the Government the Bill will be introduced and published as soon as Parliamentary time allows.

Home Secretary Theresa May, pictured, said: “Serious and organised crime blights lives and causes misery across the UK. It is a threat to our national security and costs hard-working taxpayers at least £24 billion a year. Through the creation of the National Crime Agency and publication of the Serious and Organised Crime Strategy last year, we have strengthened our ability to tackle this pernicious threat. We have made life for its perpetrators tougher than ever before – but as the challenges evolve so too must our response. This Bill will ensure that the NCA, the police and others have the powers they need to continue effectively and relentlessly to pursue, disrupt and bring to justice so-called ‘Mr Bigs’ and the organised criminal groups they control. It will also introduce measures to guard against the threat of terrorism and protect vulnerable women and children.”

Measures in the Serious Crime Bill will:

for recovery of criminal assets, amend the Proceeds of Crime Act 2002.
Amend the Computer Misuse Act 1990.
Create a new offence targeting people who knowingly participate in an organised crime group.
Extend the scope of Serious Crime Prevention Orders and gang injunctions.
Establish new powers to seize, detain and destroy chemical substances suspected of being used as cutting agents for illegal drugs.
Clarify the Children and Young Persons Act 1933 to make it explicit that cruelty which is likely to cause psychological harm to a child is an offence.
Create a new offence of possessing ‘paedophilic manuals’.
Extend the extra-territorial reach of the offences in the Female Genital Mutilation Act 2003 (and the equivalent Scottish legislation) so that they apply to habitual as well as permanent UK residents.
Allow people suspected of committing an offence overseas under sections 5 (preparation of terrorist acts) or 6 (training for terrorism) of the Terrorism Act 2006 to be prosecuted in the UK.

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