"PARADISE LOST?" A Guide to Environmental Prosecutions

The Red Lion Lecture series is organised by Red Lion Chambers and hosted in collaboration with The Dickson Poon School of Law, King's College London.

Abstract

Professor Macrory will outline important aspects of the draft Environment (Principles and Governance) Bill which sets out how the government will maintain environmental standards as we leave the EU. The Draft Bill also details the Government’s vision of the 25 Year Environment Plan.

This includes creating an independent body - the Office for Environmental Protection – which will:

• scrutinise environmental law and the government’s environmental improvement plan
• investigate complaints on environmental law
• take enforcement action on environmental law

The broader Environment Bill will also include measures on air quality, nature recovery, waste and resource efficiency and water management.

The new Bill is likely to be one of the most important pieces of environmental legislation. It will help to shape the post-Brexit Government’s approach to the environment.

Sailesh Mehta will discuss sentencing in environmental cases and recent case law. Since the Sentencing Council produced definitive guidelines on sentencing environmental crime, the sentencing landscape has changed markedly. There has been a significant increase in the sentences imposed by Courts. However, the increase in average fines has been accompanied by a greater certainty in predicting the likely sentence.

Sailesh will discuss and analyse the trend and look ahead to what the Courts will do in the future.

Sailesh has recently appeared in the Court of Appeal in a number of sentencing cases. He will discuss the trends and give focused guildance on how best to negotiate with the prosecution as well as the Court to achieve the best result.

Sailesh will also discuss the particular difficulties in sentencing very large companies, having successfully prosecuted some of Europe’s largest companies in regulatory offences.

Speaker Biographies

Sailesh Mehta (Red Lion Chambers) has defended and prosecuted in some of the most important environmental cases over the last 20 years. He has helped to develop the law relating to the international movement of waste, the sentencing of very large corporations and aspects of water pollution law. He balances his Crown Court practice with an appellate caseload and advises corporations as well as institutions. He advises a number of governmental bodies, including DEFRA and the Environment Agency at national level.

Sailesh regularly lectures on all aspects of environmental law in the UK and abroad. He was recently invited to lecture to 400 judges from 50 jurisdictions in Tanzania. Last year, Sailesh chaired a panel on environmental law at a judicial conference in Brisbane, Australia at which numerous Lord Chief Justices from many countries (including our own LCJ) attended.

He has been a Recorder of the Crown Court for over 10 years.

Prof Richard McCrory CBE (Director of the Centre for Law and the Environment at University College London) is a barrister at Brick Court Chambers and Emeritus Professor of Environmental Law at University College London where he set up and was first director of the Centre for Law and the Environment.

Professor Macrory served as a board member of the Environmental Agency for England and Wales between 1999 and 2004. In 2006 he led the Cabinet Office Review on Regulatory Sanctions and his recommendations were reflected in Part 3 of the Regulatory Enforcement and Sanctions Act 2008, which established the framework for civil sanctions in the regulatory field. He was Consulting Editor on the new Halsburys Law Environmental Law published in May 2019.

Professor Macrory was a Member of the Royal Commission on Environmental Pollution between 1992 and 2003. He was the founding editor in chief of the Journal of Environmental Law (Oxford University Press) and is currently legal correspondent to ENDS Report. He was Hon. President of the National Society for Clean Air 2005-6 and Chairman of Merchant Ivory Film Productions between 1988 and 2004. In 2001-2003 he was elected Chairman of the Steering Group of the European Environmental Advisory Councils, an informal network of official environmental advisory bodies throughout Europe. He is a Patron of the UK Environmental Law Association.