Mandatory jail sentences for threatening to use a knife are likely to fuel a further rise in the already overcrowded prison population, MPs will warn today.

Draft guidelines from the Sentencing Council, which advises courts on what penalties to impose, could lead to a “substantial increase in custody,” the Commons justice committee will say.

The MPs urge the council to ask the Ministry of Justice to consider how any predicted increase in the prison population “might be accommodated”. The prison population in England and Wales is 85,500 at present. They were responding to draft guidelines for the sentencing of offenders found in possession of, or threatening use of, a bladed article or weapon.

In the report MPs say that the council’s analysis of court data indicates a steady increase in the use and length of custodial sentences for possession offences in the last decade.

In 2015, 62 per cent of sentences for possession of bladed articles were custodial, including suspended sentences, with an average term of 6.1 months. This was a “significant increase” on the average of 3.5 months in 2005.

Immediate custody and suspended sentences accounted for 29 per cent of punishments for the newer offence of threatening with a bladed article. The average length of custodial sentences that year was 12 months.

MPs note that the council expects the guidelines to increase the proportion of offences that result in custodial sentences, but they have not been able to estimate with any certainty how sentencing behaviour may change. “The committee appreciates the difficulties in making such predictions, but the prospect of a substantial increase in the number of custodial sentences is a concern,” the MPs say.

A challenge brought by alleged victims of a UK-US rendition during what became known as the “war on terror” under Tony Blair has been moved into a secret hearing after only short proceedings in open court.

In the High Court yesterday, the government argued that central elements of a case brought by victims of a 2004 UK-US rendition should be heard in secret.

The hearing comes after a recent unanimous UK Supreme Court ruling that the men’s case could proceed, despite government arguments that the courts should not hear the case at all.

The two men, Amanatullah Ali and Yunus Rahmatullah, are challenging the Foreign Office over what they claim is Britain’s involvement in their rendition. They say that they were detained by the UK in Iraq, and then rendered to US custody in Afghanistan where they were held without charge, trial or access to a lawyer for a decade. Both men were badly abused.

The human rights organisation, Reprieve, says that it can demonstrate that the detention was based on false intelligence that led to Ali, a Pakistani rice farmer with no ties to extremism, being mistaken for Ahmad Dilshad, head of the military wing of the Sunni extremist group Lashkar-e-Taiba. The trial is thought to be the first case of a so-called closed material procedure (CMP) being used in a case brought by rendition victims. Reprieve, which is assisting the men, maintains that the government is seeking to avoid embarrassing revelations about the cases.

At yesterday’s hearing, journalists, members of the public and lawyers from Reprieve were asked to leave the court after 45 minutes.

The former Tower Hamlets mayor found guilty of corruption has secured a delay in his hearing before a lawyer disciplinary tribunal because he is challenging the Electoral Court over barring him from political office.

Lutfur Rahman, Britain’s first elected Muslim mayor, was found by the Electoral Court in 2015 to be guilty of “corrupt and illegal practices” under the Representation of the People Act 1983 and barred from running for political office for five years.

However, the Solicitors Disciplinary Tribunal sitting in London heard yesterday that the disgraced mayor had lodged judicial review proceedings against the findings of the court, seeking to have them quashed on the basis that the director of public prosecutions had not brought any charges against him.

Rahman qualified as a solicitor in 1997 and the regulator currently lists him as non-practising. His barrister, Tanveer Qureshi, of Carmelite Chambers in the Temple, told the tribunal that the issues in the judicial review challenge were “inextricably linked” with the issues to be considered by the tribunal.

He agreed that there was a “degree of uncertainty” as to the outcome of the judicial review proceedings but added: “That does not mean that it is in the interests of justice to proceed with this hearing. The judicial review proceedings potentially have a fundamental impact on the shape of these substantive proceedings,” he told the panel chaired by Andrew Spooner, a solicitor.

Edward Levey, a barrister from Fountain Court Chambers in the Temple, appeared for the Solicitors Regulation Authority, which is prosecuting the charges before the tribunal. He said that the only certainty was the “uncertainty” surrounding the judicial review proceedings with regard to scope, timing and even whether leave would be granted.

He described as “novel” the argument of Rahman’s lawyers that the findings of the Electoral Court should be quashed because the DPP had decided not to bring charges and insisted that the judicial review proceedings would in any case have no bearing on the issues before the tribunal.

A trade union yesterday fired yet another shot in the battle against “gig economy” employers when it launched a legal claim to declare medical couriers as employees.

Couriers for The Doctors Laboratory – a provider of pathology services for the NHS – opened proceedings in the employment tribunal in the first test case in the healthcare sector.

That claim coincided with similar actcion as the parcel delivery company DX faced action over the employment status of its delivery drivers. The claim is being taken by law firm Leigh Day on behalf of the GMB union, which represents the 23 current and former DX drivers. The issues raised by the drivers have been submitted to ACAS early conciliation and if a satisfactory outcome is not reached the case will go to the Employment Tribunal.

The actions come after drivers for Uber, the taxi app business, won a similar claim last year. Last month the Court of Appeal upheld an earlier tribunal ruling that Pimlico Plumbers, a London business, must grant employment status to a worker that it had maintained was a contractor.

Another courier company, City Sprint, is facing a similar claim for employment rights from one of its cyclists. And cyclists for Deliveroo, the meals delivery business, have launched a legal claim to be allowed union recognition and representation.

Yesterday’s action before the London central employment tribunal was made on behalf of five couriers working for the Australian company. Backed by the Independent Workers Union of Great Britain, the couriers maintain that they are employees and not independent contractors, as they allege the company falsely claims.

The union claims that The Doctors Laboratory, which had £3 billion in annual revenue last year, has been “bogusly classifying their UK couriers as independent contractors for years, denying them sick pay, holiday pay and other basic employment rights”.

The Doctors Laboratory said that it was still waiting to receive formal notification of the tribunal claim. “We keep the working arrangements of our couriers under constant review to ensure that we comply with the latest standards and legal requirements,” it said in a statement.

A New York law firm reignited salary wars on this side of the pond by boosting starting annual pay packets for its newly qualified lawyers to £120,000.

Cleary Gottlieb Steen & Hamilton confirmed yesterday that it had ramped up pay for junior solicitors by £15,000. The move comes just five months after the London office handed newly qualified staff a 9 per cent rise. Between 12 and 15 lawyers qualify at its London office every year.

Sterling’s fall since the vote to leave the European Union has spurred many of the US firms in London to increase pay for junior lawyer so that it keeps pace with dollar wages Stateside.

Despite such dramatic rises Cleary Gottlieb is still just keeping up with its American counterparts in the City. Akin Gump and Kirkland & Ellis lead the junior lawyer pay league in the City, with each doling out annual packets of £147,000 to their solicitors on qualification.

But the Cleary munificence takes the firm closer to rivals Latham & Watkins and Milbank, which each pay salaries of £124,000 to newly qualified lawyers, and level with the London office of Skadden.

The firm moves ahead of a group of US firms in London, including Weil Gotshal & Manges, Davis Polk & Wardwell and Shearman & Sterling.

It is understood that the highest-paying domestic firms are two “magic circle” practices – Clifford Chance and Freshfields Bruckhaus Deringer – which offer qualifying salaries of a relatively paltry £85,000.

A lawyer who started her legal career as a 15-year-old on work experience has become the youngest woman in the UK to become a judge, at the age of 31.

Briony Clarke was sworn in as a deputy district judge at Chelmsford crown court in Essex yesterday after a meteoric rise. Her legal experience began as a schoolgirl when she had a placement with the Chelmsford firm Taylor Haldane Barlex. Sixteen years on she will sit in judgment at magistrates’ courts on the London and southeast circuit.

In 2001 she joined Taylor Haldane Barlex as a trainee solicitor and from there rose through the ranks to become a general criminal law solicitor, attending magistrates’ courts and police stations regularly as well as the crown court. She qualified as a solicitor-advocate in both the criminal and civil courts in 2012.

She also handles regulatory work, prosecuting cases for the Health & Safety Executive such as fatalities resulting from accidents at work and accidents in which serious injury and extensive damage was caused.

According to her firm Ms Clarke “lives and breathes criminal law, but when she manages to find spare time she enjoys horseriding”.

Prosecutors have charged Barry Bennell, the disgraced former football coach, with an additional eight counts of child sexual abuse, it emerged yesterday.

Bennell, 63, has been at the heart of a crisis around childcare and the national game since he was charged last November with a first round of eight counts.

The Crown Prosecution Service said that Bennell – who had coaching stints at Crewe Alexandra and Manchester City in the 1980s – would appear via video link at South Cheshire magistrates’ court on March 13 in relation to the latest historical charges, which concern two alleged victims. The eight charges brought in November concern one alleged victim.

Bennell has already served prison sentences in Britain and the United States for child abuse offences.

Barrister says to be competitive, avoid cleavage and have a dazzling smile – Daily Mail

DLA takes over Portuguese law firm – The Lawyer

Amazon agrees to hand over Echo data in murder case – CNet