THE rights of the accused must not be forgotten within the Government’s proposals to cut back eligibility for trial by jury, the Bishop of Gloucester, the Rt Revd Rachel Treweek, warned this week.
The Justice Secretary, David Lammy, announced the proposals on Tuesday. They include the establishment of latest “swift courts”, through which cases with a probable sentence of three years or less can be heard by a judge, sitting alone. Jury trials can be guaranteed for “essentially the most serious and just about all indictable offences”, including rape, murder, and grievous bodily harm.
“Victims are waiting far too long to get their case to court, and much more are being let down by a system that permits nefarious defendants to try to game the system,” Mr Lammy said. “Justice delayed is justice denied. . . We are putting victims before tradition for tradition’s sake and fairness before those that wish to game the system.”
The proposals form the Government’s response to the primary a part of the independent review of the criminal courts by Sir Brian Leveson, which warned that criminal justice was in crisis. As of December 2024, there have been greater than 75,000 outstanding cases. Trials were being listed as far ahead as 2029.
This week’s response goes further than his recommendations, which included a recent division of the Crown Court through which a judge sitting alongside two magistrates would have the potential to listen to all “either-way offences” (cases that may be heard in either the Magistrates or the Crown Court).
On Wednesday, Bishop Treweek expressed concern that the Government’s presentation of the proposals lacked any give attention to the rights of the accused alongside those of victims. She said that she intended to ask Mr Lammy how his proposals would keep in mind his own 2017 review of the treatment of, and outcomes for, BAME individuals within the criminal justice system, which highlighted the presence of unconscious bias (News, 15 September).
She referred to the 17,000 people being held on remand, a big percentage of whom wouldn’t be convicted, and the 50 per cent of girls who wouldn’t go on to receive a custodial sentence. “Victims face agonising delays; so do the accused, who’re innocent until proven guilty,” she said.
In a letter to The Daily Telegraph, Charles Wide KC, a former judge on the Old Bailey and a Reader within the Church of England, described Mr Lammy’s plans as “outrageous”.
Speaking to the Church Times this week, he spoke of the “brutal cuts” made during George Osborne’s term of office as Chancellor. Judge Wide had “little doubt that much may be done in relation to criminal case management to enhance the ‘disposal rate’ of cases without the immense harm of what’s being proposed”.
Colleagues working within the system — “demoralised but striving to make the system work” — spoke of empty courts, a scarcity of permitted sitting days, part-time judges’ not with the ability to sit for his or her required days, mistakes by the police and CPS, and failure by the prison service to supply defendants in custody on time or in any respect. Other aspects included failings within the system for providing interpreters and IT and the non-appearance of prosecution advocates. “No one, that I even have spoken to, blames jury trial.”
The right to a jury trial was particularly vital, given the “polarisation of views on so many issues” evident within the UK, Peter Collier KC, a former Recorder of Leeds, said on Wednesday. It lay “at the guts” of the general public’s consent to the powers of the State. The risk of unconscious bias was “significantly ironed out” by a jury, he said, versus a “single hardened legal skilled” deciding on guilt.
He also questioned whether removing a jury would significantly reduce trial times: estimates being cited gave the impression to be “fingers within the wind”, he said.
