Judge warns justice will be denied without scrapping of jury trials

A retired senior judge has warned justice will be denied without changes to jury trials, as victims withdraw from the system because of delays.

Sir Brian Leveson’s review into the justice system recommended reorganising the criminal courts, including a controversial proposal to scale back the right to trial by jury.

He has reissued his call for action after Prime Minister Andy Burnham indicated he could drop the plan which would see jury trials restricted to offences with a likely prison sentence of more than three years.

Defendants would not ordinarily get a trial by jury if they are likely to receive only a short prison sentence or in technical and lengthy fraud and financial cases.

Mr Burnham said his “instincts are that we need to find ways of not reducing access to jury trial” after the plans faced significant backlash.

They were set out in the Courts and Tribunals Bill under then-justice secretary David Lammy in a bid to help ease court backlogs.

Sir Brian, a retired Court of Appeal judge who has been appointed to the House of Lords, said he is a “great believer in jury trials” but “we can’t carry on as we are”.

Speaking to The University of Law’s podcast Inside the Case, he said listing trials for 2029 and 2030 is a “denial of justice” and the system is only going to get slower without reform.

Sir Brian said “one of the issues presently is that victims are withdrawing”.

He added: “I understand the Bar don’t like it. But if not this, then what? You can’t just say, ‘We’re not going to do this, that, the other,’ and then expect the system to be able to cope, because you can’t sit enough days, there aren’t enough courts, judges, or indeed lawyers to staff the sort of numbers of days that you would have to sit.”

In a letter to then-prime minister Sir Keir Starmer in April, organised by the Bar Council, hundreds of judges, barristers and lawyers said “the proposals are based on little evidence”.