Member

These people are laughing at us and see that, when it comes to their crimes, we are effectively lawless. They are also smart and difficult to pin down with evidence, short of entering their shops without notice and searching the premises again and again. We used to have strict liability for landlords, who could be a thousand miles away and still be criminally liable if someone was caught taking drugs on their property. Of course, that was until Sweet v Parsley 1970, when the House of Lords quashed the conviction of a landlady unaware that students who rented her property used it for cannabis, ruling that knowledge of the illegal activity was essential for the offence.