an important safeguard to acquitted defendants, but there is an important general public interest in ensuring that those who have committed serious crimes are convicted of them. The Stephen Lawrence Inquiry Report recognised that the rule is capable of causing grave injustice to victims and the community in certain cases where compelling fresh evidence has come to light after an acquittal. It called for a change in the law to be considered, and we have accepted that such a change is appropriate. The European Convention on Human Rights (Article 4(2) of Protocol 7) explicitly recognises the importance of being able to re-open cases where new evidence comes to light. The Justice for All report stated in paragraph 4.66 that the double jeopardy power was to be retrospective. That is, it was to apply to acquittals which took place before the law was changed, as well as those that happened afterwards. This Act was not the first legislation to affect the double jeopardy rule: the Criminal Procedure and Investigations Act 1996 provided that an acquittal proved beyond reasonable doubt to have been procured through violence or intimidation of a juror or witness could be quashed by the High Court. The first person to be re-tried under the Criminal Justice Act 2003 for an offence of which he had previously been acquitted was Billy Dunlop. He was acquitted of murdering his former girlfriend Julie Hogg in 1989. The application was brought by the Crown with the consent of the Director of Public Prosecutions, given in writing on 10 November 2005 and heard by the Lord Chief Justice of England and Wales on 16 June 2006, who granted it. Dunlop was retried and convicted on 6 October 2006. He was sentenced to a life term, with a minimum tariff of 17 years. Criminal evidence reform Bad character The 2003 Act extensively changed the law regarding the admissibility into evidence of a defendant's convictions for previous offences, and his other misconduct, broadening the circumstances in which the prosecution could introduce such matters. It also imposed statutory restrictions, for the first time, on the ability of defence lawyers to cross-examine prosecution witnesses about their own criminal records. Bad character evidence is defined under section 98 as evidence of, or a disposition towards, misconduct on his part, other than evidence which - (a) has to do with the alleged facts of the offence with which the