Public lecture: 23 July 2018 by Associate Professor, Dr Nicola Wake

The Centre for Non-Adversarial Justice is pleased, together with the partners of Kayes, Fletcher, Walker, to host Associate Professor Nicola Wake, as the KFW Visiting Scholar for 2018. Associate Professor Wake will address the important topic:

Trafficking victims compelled to commit offences: Increasing the protection available in England and Wales and New Zealand.

The lecture will be given in Te Iringa The Wave Room, WG 308, Auckland University of Technology (AUT) at 5.00 on Monday 23 July 2018.

Trafficking victims compelled to commit offences: Increasing the protection available in England and Wales and New Zealand

ABSTRACT. The UK government introduced a substantive criminal law defence for individuals compelled to commit a criminal offence because of slavery and/or exploitation under the Modern Slavery Act 2015, s.45. The approach adopted has operated as a catalyst for reform initiatives elsewhere. In Australia The Joint Standing Committee on Foreign Affairs, Defence and Trade in Hidden in Plain Sight (December 2017) has recommended that the Australian government introduce defence(s) for modern day slavery victims compelled to commit offences due to exploitation similar to, but improving upon, s.45.

New Zealand, like the UK and Australia, retains ‘Tier 1’ status as it “fully meets the minimum standards for the elimination of trafficking” (The U.S. DoS, Trafficking in Person’s Report (TIP) (2017). The TIP acknowledged the “serious and sustained efforts” of the New Zealand government to combat human trafficking but only “moderate efforts” were being maintained in relation to victim protection compared with an increase in “protection efforts” identified in the report on the UK.

In the lecture Associate Professor Wake argues that the implementation of an equivalent defence to s.45 could assist in increasing the protection efforts presently operating in New Zealand, but the provision could be much improved. It will be argued that a key area in which improvement is needed relates to the exclusion of 140 offences from the parameters of the defence (Modern Slavery Act 2015, s.45(7)). Associate Professor Wake argues that excluding “serious offences” falsely assumes that the commission of serious crime is tantamount to the individual being a serious criminal. Using murder as an example of one of the excluded offences, the lecture will explore the implications the statutory exclusion could have on human trafficking victims compelled to commit serious offences.

Dr Nicola Wake PhD, PG Cert (TLHE), G.PLL, LLB (Hons) First Class is an outstanding criminal law academic in the UK. She is currently Associate Professor in Law, and Deputy Director for the Centre for Evidence and Criminal Justice Studies at Northumbria University, Newcastle-Upon-Tyne, England and Wales. Nicola has published widely in the area of criminal law, but with a special interest in mental condition defences. She holds several editorial positions, and has secured funding from prestigious providers. Nicola is a research mentor to academic colleagues, and supervises a number of PhD students.