Legal Features

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Knife through the stereotypes

ARound about the time I was still doing juvenile court crime – like delinquency, a practice one hopes to grow out of – the fashion was to blame all society's ills on single mothers. As far as the tabloids and government policy ( often indistinguishable, then as now) was concerned, their general fecklessness , indolence and irresponsibility was to blame for everything. Specifically, their pig headed refusal to have truck with the absent heroes who had fathered their children was the root cause of 'Britain's Breakdown'. It was always a surprise to go to court and meet the reality – worried, hard working, committed women trying to keep their families together against the odds. Not all of course – the odorously pissed mama, a stranger to education, employment or indeed soap, who swigged cans of loopy juice while letting rip to her strongly held views about immigration and shouting obscenities at her 11-year-old wasn't a particularly great advert for motherhood, or indeed our species. Her mantra was that Britain was no longer a place for the decent white working class, like her. After an afternoon of this I did mutter 'Well, one out of three ain't bad' but by then she was too drunk to hear it. But I remember her as a glorious exception to the norm – the majority were wilfully misrepresented.

Update: licensing

Roy Light reviews the latest practice and recent cases under the Licensing Act 2003

Joined by the HIP

Imran Khan explains how one firm of solicitors took the introduction of Home Information Packs as a commercial opportunity by setting up its own HIP company

Interest: are you getting enough?

Claims for interest on late payment are straightforward and judges will not look favourably on parties who do not play by the rules, says District Judge Paul Mildred

An active regulator

The SRA's tough new approach to regulation is too intrusive, says David Mayhew

Repossession claims against third parties

Lenders seeking to repossess a property on grounds of arrears may soon no longer be able to stop third party occupiers claiming beneficial rights, says Robin Powell

Update: landlord and tenant

Milton McIntosh reviews the latest cases on service charges, rent reviews, alienation, forfeiture and business teancies

Inferring discrimination from a failure to reply to questionnaires

Tribunals should not automatically draw inferences that an employer's failure to respond to a discrimination questionnaire indicates guilt. David Massarella reports