Criminal Litigation for the SQE

Criminal Law and Practice questions on SQE1 reward knowing where the case is and who decides. This free PDF follows one adult case from arrest to appeal: detention and the custody clock, the interview and silence, identification, bail, the first hearing and allocation, case management and disclosure, the evidence rules, the trial, sentencing and appeals.

Updated October 2026 · checked against the SQE1 specification, legislation.gov.uk, the Criminal Procedure Rules 2025, PACE Codes C and D, GOV.UK and the Sentencing Council’s guidelines on 28 October 2026. General information, not legal advice.

Where Criminal Practice sits in SQE1

The SRA calls the subject Criminal Law and Practice. From January 2027 it is in the second FLK2 session, with Property Law and Practice and Criminal Liability, and the blueprint gives it 14 to 20% of the paper. The specification has four assessment areas: advising at the police station, pre-trial considerations, meeting the client’s objectives, and trials, sentencing and appeals. The guide covers the adult case; the youth court and the Welsh language lines are outside it.

The time limits at a glance

What changed in 2026

The Sentencing Act 2026 changed two topics from 22 March 2026, so books printed before then are out of date. For an adult convicted on or after that date, a suspended sentence can be up to 3 years, and a sentence of 12 months or less must be suspended unless there are exceptional circumstances or an exemption applies. In bail, the “no real prospect of custody” exception now ignores a likely suspended sentence and applies after conviction too, and the court must consider whether the defendant is pregnant, a primary carer or a victim of domestic abuse.

Evidence the exam returns to

• Confessions: exclusion under PACE s 76(2) is mandatory, whether or not the confession is true; s 78 is a discretion.
• Silence: inferences under the CJPOA 1994 ss 34 to 37, but none without an opportunity to consult a solicitor, and never a conviction on silence alone.
• Hearsay: admissible only through one of the four routes in the CJA 2003 s 114(1).
• Bad character: the seven defendant gateways and the three non-defendant gateways, with the fairness exclusion for gateways (d) and (g).
• Identification: Code D procedures and the Turnbull warning.

What is inside the PDF

• How Criminal Practice is examined, and the whole case on one page
• The police station: the custody clock, rights, the interview, silence and identification
• Bail after the 2026 changes, with a worked bail hearing
• The first hearing, the representation order and a decision tree on allocation
• Case management, disclosure, and the evidence rules
• Trial procedure, sentencing with a worked example, and appeals
• Ten exam traps, a twelve-question self-test and a checklist

For every deadline across FLK1 and FLK2 in one table, see our free guide Time Limits for SQE1, and for the professional conduct rules that apply in criminal work, Ethics and Professional Conduct for the SQE.

Frequently asked questions