Four shorter stories from the end of the week: HMCTS bans Meta smart glasses from court buildings in England and Wales, the family law consultation on financial remedies and cohabitation closes today, the Court of Appeal upholds the convictions in the fake-bombs plot against two barristers, and the Legal Services Consumer Panel corrects part of the report that angered the CLC.
Meta smart glasses banned from courts in England and Wales
HM Courts and Tribunals Service has confirmed that Meta smart glasses will be confiscated from anyone entering court or tribunal buildings in England and Wales and returned when the owner leaves. A spokesperson told the Guardian that clear restrictions on taking images or videos within courts and tribunals are why the use of the glasses is prohibited, and no smartphone-style exception will be made, because the camera in the frames can record without anyone knowing. The move follows a London case in which a party was accused of being coached through smart glasses during cross examination, and it lands amid wider institutional caution about courtroom technology of the kind we covered on the HMCTS court data licence. The policy was reported by the Guardian on 11 August.
What happens now the ‘fairer end to relationships’ consultation has closed?
The Ministry of Justice consultation on financial remedies reform and a new cohabitation scheme, ‘A fairer end to relationships’, closes today, 14 August. Criticism has continued to the deadline, with family practitioners and campaigners questioning the proposed three-year cohabitation trigger as arbitrary for couples whose finances intertwine much sooner. Attention now turns to the government response and to whichever of the two workstreams, the discretionary reform of financial remedies or the cohabitation scheme, is given legislative priority. Our analysis of the consultation sets out what is on the table.
Fake-bombs plot against barristers’ chambers: conviction and sentence upheld
The Court of Appeal has dismissed the conviction and sentence appeals of Jonathan Nuttall, the businessman who arranged for imitation explosive devices to be planted at Gray’s Inn in September 2021, targeting two barristers who had acted for the National Crime Agency in recovering £1.4m from his wife. Edis LJ said the sentence of eight years and two months was not one day too long for an attack made more serious by being an attack on the system of justice itself, and the court also rejected the sentence appeal of his driver, Michael Sode. Nuttall ran six grounds, including alleged disclosure failings and juror pressure at the end of a three-month trial. The judgment is R v Nuttall [2026] EWCA Crim 1013.
What did the Consumer Panel concede in its row with the CLC?
The Legal Services Consumer Panel has corrected its report A Regulatory Framework for the Future after the Council for Licensed Conveyancers identified an inaccuracy in its description of a BBC Panorama investigation, which examined conditional selling by estate agents rather than referral fee arrangements involving licensed conveyancers. The CLC says other inaccuracies remain and is seeking a meeting with the panel and the Legal Services Board, so the row over a report arguing for a single regulator, a case we examined when the panel first made it, is not over. The correction notice is on the panel’s website, and our guide to the eight legal services regulators explains who oversees whom.