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There have been growing concerns about the malleability of digital communications evidence and its potential to reinforce embedded rape myths and cultural narratives that undermine victim-survivors in sexual offences trials. There is however a paucity of research exploring this issue in practice, and none in England and Wales. This article therefore uses two case studies, drawn from court observation research in 2019, to explore how digital communications evidence is used in English sexual offences trials. In both case studies the prosecution argued that digital communications between defendant and victim-survivor constituted admissions of guilt; both defendants resisted this by providing alternative meanings to the well-known colloquial phrases within the messages. Through the process of entextualisation, defence counsel bolstered the meanings defendants attributed to digital communications by drawing upon rape myths and deeply embedded gendered narratives. Defence counsel further employed rape myths and gendered narratives to undermine prosecution entextualisations of the digital evidence. This analysis builds on the existing literature by demonstrating that the malleability of digital evidence extends even to seemingly unambiguous communications.

This chapter examines the hostility, harassment and violence that disabled people experience. In particular, the chapter focuses on the harmful impacts of ‘low level’ microaggressions, such as intimidatory behaviour and abusive language. Such ‘disablist’ acts create a widespread sense of fear, that forces people to navigate and avoid certain spaces and sites. The chapter argues for the use of the term ‘disablist violence’ instead of ‘disability hate crime’ to better represent entrenched exclusionary social attitudes and behaviours. The chapter draws on a study with people with learning disabilities to examine the lived experiences of hate, in a range of spaces. The chapter applies feminist theoretical ideas from the field of ‘street harassment’ to make sense of disablist violence and harassment, demonstrate that hate crime is a rights issue, and to identify opportunities for resistance.

This commentary responds to claims that research by Cheryl Thomas ‘shows’ no problem with rape myths in English and Welsh juries. We critique the claim on the basis of ambiguous survey design, a false distinction between ‘real’ jurors and other research participants, the conflation of attitudes in relation to abstract versus applied rape myths, and misleading interpretation of the data. Ultimately, we call for a balanced appraisal of individual studies by contextualising them against the wider literature.\ud \ud Key messages:\ud \ud Thomas (2020) argued that her research showed rape myths do not influence juries.\ud \ud We critique Thomas’ claim because the research was not designed to ask about influence on juries, there are several methodological limitations, and the data actually reveal ambivalence about rape myths on the part of many jurors.

The British state’s mechanism for compensating victim-survivors of sexual offences has been critiqued as retraumatising. However, a recent review preliminarily rejected calls to loosen the eligibility rules, stating that the current criteria reflect public attitudes. This article outlines the first empirical study of public opinion on the UK Criminal Injuries Compensation Scheme (CICS), drawing on data from over 2,000 survey participants. The findings show ambivalence among members of the public, but also reveal the current rules are not strongly supported and are in some cases highly unpopular. The article then examines some difficulties with relying on public opinion for criminal justice reform, and ultimately argues that there are stronger justifications for reforming the CICS than popularity with the public. Specifically, loosening the eligibility criteria would create more legitimate policy through the protection of core societal values such as fairness and dignity.

Background The serum tumor markers CA 19–9 and CA 125 are the serologic markers used for the monitoring of biliopancreatic and ovarian cancer, respectively. They are reported to be elevated in a variety of nonneoplastic clinical situations, including end-stage liver disease (ESLD). However, their prevalence and degree of elevation in patients with ESLD remained unclear. Aim To examine the prevalence and degree of elevation of CA 19–9 and CA 125 in patients with ESLD and to determine their association with severity of liver disease. Methods Retrospective analysis of 161 patients with ESLD that were evaluated for liver transplantation at our institution between March 2009 and December 2010. The mean age was 55.15 ± 8.75 years and 107 (66.4%) of the patients were men. Serum CA 19–9 and CA 125 levels were determined during evaluation of their candidacy for liver transplantation. Results Eighty-three (51.5%) patients had elevated CA 125 and 44 (53%) of them had a serum concentration >5 times the upper limit of normal (ULN). Elevated CA 125 was associated with alcoholic liver disease, high Model for End-Stage Liver Disease (MELD) score, and presence of ascites. Similarly, 37 (23%) patients had elevated CA 19–9 and 8 (21.6%) of them had a serum concentration >5 times ULN. Elevation of CA 19–9 was associated with high MELD score. Conclusions CA 125 and CA 19–9 concentrations were elevated in 51.5% and 23% of patients with ESLD, respectively. Although the definite etiology remained unclear, their elevation was associated with the pathological conditions associated with advanced liver disease. Further studies are needed to clarify the underlying mechanism(s) responsible for their increased levels.

In the past few years the risks associated with use of the Internet and social networking sites by children and young people have become a recurrent focus of attention for the media, the public, and policymakers. Parents, caregivers, and child care professionals alike are rightly concerned about exposure to pornography, pedophiles, and cyberbullies. At the same time Internet researchers have been steadily collecting evidence about the actual opportunities and risks associated with the young people's use of the Internet. In this article we describe some of the emerging evidence on opportunities and risks for young people and consider the challenges for social welfare professional charged with the role of safeguarding “looked after” children.

This article reports on a study of a networked learning approach among remote social work practitioners in a large, rural local authority. The intervention was a blended approach that combined facilitation, face-to-face meetings, online communications and access to e-library resources. The intervention was focused on discussions of case management issues for three fictional cases. A method of text analysis used in community of enquiry research was implemented to examine participant discourse. Findings indicate that practitioners developed a community of enquiry that privileged face-to-face communication. Online resources were primarily used as supplementary communication. Practitioners engaged with the community of enquiry approach and used explicit knowledge to inform discussions of case planning.

This article explains the rationale for the digitization of social work heritage material and the virtualization of an archived nondigital museum exhibit constructed by a Scottish Museum of Social Work. The project involved the “virtualization” of an existing social work museum exhibition on the migration of “Home Children” from Scotland to Canada in the late 19th and early 20th century and the digital preservation of historical assets (both text and images) held by the contemporary social care organization involved in the migration of the children. This article discusses best practice in the preservation of historical assets, the methodology and technology used in the creation of the multimedia version of the exhibition, and the complexities of negotiating intellectual property rights in the transition from historical artifacts to new digital works.

Contrary to well-recognized bleeding diathesis in chronic liver disease, thrombotic events can occur in these patients due to reduction or loss of synthesis of anticoagulant proteins. Forty-seven consecutive patients with end-stage liver disease (ESLD) were investigated for activity of protein C, protein S, antithrombin, and factor V Leiden mutation. Forty-two (89.4%) patients had low levels of at least 1 while 33 (70.2%) patients were deficient for all anticoagulant proteins studied. Forty-six (97.9%) patients were negative for factor V Leiden mutation. The deficiencies were more marked in hepatitis C virus–positive patients and patients with model for end-stage liver disease (MELD) score >15. Six (12.8%) patients had portal vein thrombosis (PVT), and all had diminished protein S activity. In conclusions, deficiency of anticoagulant proteins occur in early phase of chronic liver disease. The severity of deficiency is proportional to the severity of liver disease. Despite the high prevalence of hypercoagulability, the incidence of PVT is low. Further studies with larger cohort of patients are needed to support these conclusions and to study other associated factors.

The digital age has transformed access to all kinds of educational content not only in text-based format but also digital images and other media. As learning technologists and librarians begin to organise these new media into digital collections for educational purposes, older problems associated with cataloguing and classifying non-text media have re-emerged. At the heart of this issue is the problem of describing complex and highly subjective images in a reliable and consistent manner. This paper reports on the findings of research designed to test the suitability of two controlled vocabularies to index and thereby improve the discoverability of images stored in the Learning Exchange, a repository for social work education and research. An online survey asked respondents to "tag", a series of images and responses were mapped against the two controlled vocabularies. Findings showed that a large proportion of user generated tags could be mapped to the controlled vocabulary terms (or their equivalents). The implications of these findings for indexing and discovering content are discussed in the context of a wider review of the literature on "folksonomies" (or user tagging) versus taxonomies and controlled vocabularies.