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Episode details

Radio 4,03 Jun 2014,28 mins

Failing to Make Crime Pay

The Law Show

Available for over a year

The government wants to do more to recover criminal assets. Joshua Rozenberg asks why - till now, at least - it has proved so difficult to deprive villains of their loot. The Public Accounts Committee has published a scathing report criticising the collective efforts of the CPS, National Crime Agency and the courts service to reclaim the proceeds of crime. The accounts committee chairperson, Margaret Hodge, summarised the collective performance as 'rubbish'. Also, with news that Led Zeppelin are facing a legal challenge over the writing credits to Stairway to Heaven, we ask how such claims can be assessed in a court of law. And after the European Union Court of Justice ruled Google must amend some search results at the request of ordinary people in a test of the so-called 'right to be forgotten', we find out what that might mean - and whether Google has any avenue to appeal. CONTRIBUTORS Richard Lorkin, former CPS paralegal Alan McQuillan, former director of the Assets Recovery Agency Peter Oxendale, musicologist Dr Orla Lynskey, The London School of Economics and Political Science Producer: Keith Moore Series Producer: Richard Fenton-Smith.

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