{
  "url": "https://openlegislation.uk/criminal-procedure-amendment-rules-2025/note",
  "json_url": "https://openlegislation.uk/criminal-procedure-amendment-rules-2025/note.json",
  "legislation": "uksi/2025/60",
  "legislation_title": "The Criminal Procedure (Amendment) Rules 2025",
  "legislation_url": "https://openlegislation.uk/criminal-procedure-amendment-rules-2025",
  "path": "note",
  "kind": "note",
  "number": null,
  "heading": "Explanatory note",
  "text": "(This note is not part of the Rules)\nThese Rules amend the Criminal Procedure Rules 2020, S.I. 2020/759, as follows:\nRule\nAmendment\nPart 17\nRule 17.1 is amended to remove the conflation of a witness, ordinarily meaning a person who attends court to give evidence or to produce documents, with a bank which is ordered to permit the inspection and copying of bank documents. Rule 17.3 is amended explicitly to require that an application for such an order must be in writing. Rule 17.5 is amended to remove an exception to that rule which the amendment to rule 17.1 renders superfluous. Rule 17.7 is amended explicitly to include a bank ordered to permit the inspection and copying of records as a potential applicant for the withdrawal of such an order.\nPart 20\nRule 20.2 is amended more closely to align with section 117 of the Criminal Justice Act 2003 the description of certain evidence of which notice must be given.\nPart 30\nRule 30.5 is amended to clarify the availability of a magistrates’ court’s power to reduce the amount of a fine.\nPart 38\nRules 38.2 and 38.5 are amended to accommodate the possibility of a prosecutor’s absence on the occasion on which a court makes a ruling susceptible to appeal under section 58 of the Criminal Justice Act 2003.\nPart 45\nRules 45.2 and 45.7 are amended to extend to receivership proceedings to which Part 33 applies the same costs provisions as apply to applications to make, vary or discharge a restraint order.\nPart 48\nRule 48.2 is amended to require publication of an announcement of the court’s decision where it finds a contempt of court. Rule 48.5 is amended (i) to clarify the sequence in which the steps required by the rule are to be taken, (ii) to include supplementary provision about the unlawful misuse of a recording device or of a camera in the courtroom, and (iii) to include explicit references to powers of detention and bail. Rule 48.6 is amended for consistency of expression with other rules and to distinguish between decisions taken under rule 48.5 and those taken where rule 48.6 applies. Rule 48.7 is amended (i) to impose an obligation on court staff, under judicial superintendence, to prepare a written statement for the purposes of a postponed enquiry, and (ii) to include elaborated requirements for notice and warnings where an enquiry is postponed. Rule 48.8 is amended to clarify the reference to the evidence of contempt of which the court may take account on a postponed enquiry.\nCorrections. Rule 9.15 of the Criminal Procedure Rules is amended to correct a cross-reference. Rule 33.26 is amended to include an amendment omitted from the Criminal Procedure (Amendment) Rules 2024, S.I. 2024/62.\nThese Rules also amend the Criminal Procedure (Amendment No. 2) Rules 2024, S.I. 2024/842, to correct the following amendments made by those rules which have yet to come into force—\n(a) the amendment to rule 41.4 of the Criminal Procedure Rules which affects the circumstances in which that rule applies;\n(b) the amendment to the note to rule 43.1 of the Criminal Procedure Rules which adds an entry to the list of potential appeals from the Court of Appeal to the Supreme Court;\n(c) new rule 9.5(1)(c) of the Criminal Procedure Rules, as substituted by Schedule 1 to the Criminal Procedure (Amendment No. 2) Rules 2024, which lists the information that magistrates’ courts’ staff must provide for the Crown Court when a case is sent there for trial; and\n(d) an amendment to rule 24.11 of the Criminal Procedure Rules listed in Schedule 2 to the Criminal Procedure (Amendment No. 2) Rules 2024 which corrects a cross-reference.\nThese Rules come into force in accordance with rules 2 and 3, so that—\n(a) the amendments that make corrections in the Criminal Procedure Rules and in the Criminal Procedure (Amendment No. 2) Rules 2024 come into force on 24th February 2025; and\n(b) the amendments that make other changes to the Criminal Procedure Rules come into force on 7th April 2025.",
  "extent": null,
  "status": null,
  "version": "current",
  "annotations": [],
  "outstanding_effects": [],
  "provenance": {
    "source": "legislation.gov.uk",
    "source_url": "https://www.legislation.gov.uk/uksi/2025/60/note",
    "retrieved_at": "2026-10-28T21:21:31.518372+00:00",
    "licence": "OGL-UK-3.0",
    "licence_url": "https://www.nationalarchives.gov.uk/doc/open-government-licence/version/3/",
    "attribution": "Contains public sector information licensed under the Open Government Licence v3.0. Source: legislation.gov.uk, The National Archives."
  }
}