It’s Time To Fight Back

Tony Kent writes:

When it was “leaked” last week that David Lammy planned to abolish jury trials “for all but the most serious offences” in an attempt to reduce the backlog of around 80,000 crown court cases, outrage amongst criminal lawyers was tempered by the fact no one actually believed it.

We’d read the report commissioned by the Ministry of Justice from retired Court of Appeal judge Sir Brian Leveson to find cost neutral solutions. And we suspected this was a market trader haggle where one starts ridiculously high so the inevitable compromise reflects the starting point all along. An unworthy tactic for someone with the title of Lord Chancellor maybe, but one we see all too often in the Only Fools and Horses version of modern British politics.

It was no surprise then to read Tuesday’s formal announcement and find that Lammy has diluted the plans – “retreating from the most radical reforms”, as the BBC put it.

Even now, there is scant detail – perhaps indicative of the scant thought that has gone into these proposals – but they can be summarised thus: jury trials in England and Wales for crimes that carry a likely sentence of less than three years (down from five in the leak) will be scrapped; defendants will lose the right to ask for a jury trial where a case can be dealt with by either magistrates or a new form of judge-only crown court; and defendants facing fraud and complex financial crime accusations will no longer get a jury trial.

Magistrates will also have increased powers to impose sentences of up to two years from the current maximum of six months (or 12 months for multiple offences). Whilst devoid of helpful detail, the one thing that can be commended is the announcement’s clarity. The proposals seem, at this stage, to speak for themselves. But a clear idea is not necessarily a good one.

Statistics show magistrates use custodial sentences ahead of the alternative at a far greater rate than the crown courts. At the moment they can only do so to a multiple offence maximum of 12 months. If we increase that court’s sentencing powers to cover far more cases, the trend suggests we will see far more offenders sent to prison.

Some might say “so be it”, but we don’t live in a world where “so be it” is simple. We live in a world where our prisons are already so overpopulated that thousands of prisoners are being released early. Without a prison rebuilding programme to counter the effects, where is the benefit to anyone of this proposal?

Clearly the most controversial issue is the automatic removal of the right to trial by jury – a cornerstone of English justice since the 12th century.

As Lord Devlin wrote in 1956: “Trial by jury is more than an instrument of justice and more than a wheel of the constitution – it is the lamp that shows that freedom lives.” So I have a simple question: will the destruction of the millennia-old right to trial by jury assist in reducing the crown court backlog? And my answer is no, it will not assist at all.

The crown court backlog has many causes, all stemming from the systemic underfunding of criminal justice that began in the 1990s. Primary amongst causes is the fact the Government will not pay to operate existing courtrooms; and that their unwillingness to pay criminal lawyers even a measly percentage of the rates they could charge commercially in other areas of law – alongside conditions that have made the job a punishment – has seen an exodus from the profession. In short, there are no longer enough barristers or judges.

Now guess what has not contributed to that backlog? A lack of jurors. In fact, we have an abundance, way more than we can accommodate with the reduced number of lawyers and all those locked courtrooms. This being so, how will removing juries help? Well, we still won’t have enough lawyers or judges.

The Government still won’t pay to open those 20% to 25% of courtrooms they keep locked. In other words, we will still lack all the essential elements needed to hold a trial. Jury trials did not cause this backlog. Nor will their abolition cure it. Instead it will strip us of a fundamental right so Lammy and his cohorts can say they did “something”. Even if it was never going to work. It’s time to show we see their actions for what they are. It’s time to fight back.

Nicola Kelly writes:

David Lammy’s plans to scrap the automatic right to appeal risks increasing miscarriages of justice and will remove “vital safeguards” against unfair trials for vulnerable defendants, lawyers and campaigners have warned.

Speaking in the House of Commons on Tuesday, the Justice Secretary said that he will limit appeals from the magistrates courts to the Crown Court “to prevent justice from being delayed further”. The change means defendants who are convicted by volunteer magistrates will not have the automatic right to have their case re-heard at the Crown Court.

The latest proposals on appeal rights form part of sweeping reforms outlined this week, which aim to reduce the unprecedented backlog of cases in the criminal courts. In his statement to MPs, Lammy described an “emergency in our courts”, where 78,000 cases are currently awaiting trial across England and Wales. The caseload is expected to reach 100,000 by 2028.

Lammy’s package of measures will see cuts to thousands of jury trials in all but the most serious cases, including murder. Judges alone will decide the majority of crimes currently before Crown Courts, such as theft, drugs, fraud and violent and sexual offences. A tier of judge-only “swift” courts will be established to hear cases without a jury.

Magistrates courts will also see an increase in powers, dealing with maximum sentences of at least eighteen months. Most cases – around 90% – are currently heard by magistrates, but the number of volunteers in England and Wales has dropped significantly in recent years, from over 30,000 in 2010 to 14,636 in April 2025.

The Justice Secretary’s plans were met with criticism from MPs in the House of Commons, with Stella Creasy warning that “it’s hard to see how this will address the backlog” and Labour MP Karl Turner describing the move as a “massive mistake”.

The proposal to remove automatic appeals rights follows a review of the criminal courts by the retired judge Sir Brian Leveson. In the first stage report, published in July, Leveson recommended that the automatic right to appeal should be replaced with a requirement for the defendant to apply for permission to appeal. Leveson also recommended that the government should remove the requirement for a re-hearing in the Crown Court.

According to Leveson, 41% of defendants who appealed against their conviction were allowed. The latest figures show that nearly half (44%) of those pursuing an appeal against their sentence were upheld. 

“Removing the automatic right to appeal will make it infinitely more difficult for people to access justice,” said Nicholas Jennaway, criminal solicitor at Bindmans.

“The proposals are likely to lead to more errors and will remove a vital safeguard for defendants to appeal their conviction, which is extremely concerning. This seems to be about making speedy decisions rather than delivering justice.”

Fiona Rutherford, Chief Executive of law reform charity JUSTICE, said: “The Government’s announcement raises more questions than it answers. There is no evidence that scrapping the automatic right to appeal or curtailing jury trials will reduce delays. What it will do is undermine public confidence and fairness. Removing these safeguards risks marginalising vulnerable defendants, increasing the risk of miscarriages of justice, and eroding the principle of being judged by your peers.”

Legal commentator and author, The Secret Barrister, told Byline Times that the plans were “badly thought through, expensive and likely to backfire.”

“Magistrates’ courts – unlike the Crown Court – are not recorded, so there is no definitive record of what happens. In his review, Leveson proposed scrapping automatic rights of appeal from the magistrates, but said that there would need to be digital audio recording in every magistrates’ court, so that proper legal grounds of appeal could be drafted by lawyers, with everybody knowing precisely what happened at the magistrates’ court. Lammy has not said whether he will follow this. If so, the costing will be enormous: thousands of courtrooms, millions of pounds of tech and training for court staff.”

A Ministry of Justice spokesperson declined to comment.

Shehab Khan writes:

Outrage has hardly been in short supply in Westminster recently, but the fury unleashed this week within Labour’s own ranks and beyond over David Lammy’s criminal justice reforms is deeper — and arrives at a moment when the government is already going through a brutal time.

For many Labour MPs I have spoken to, Lammy’s plan to restrict the right to jury trial is not simply a policy disagreement but a betrayal of a fundamental principle of British justice, one they are struggling to see the benefit of.

The justice secretary insists his proposal is a pragmatic response to a system at breaking point. Crown court backlogs stand at nearly 80,000 cases and are projected to exceed 100,000 within a few years. Some defendants, including those accused of serious offences, have trial dates for 2029 or even 2030.

Those close to Lammy argue that victims and witnesses are losing faith while defendants, some held on remand, wait years only to be acquitted later. Swift justice, Lammy argues, is essential justice. He told me himself that he fundamentally believes in the principle that justice delayed is justice denied.

His solution is to remove a defendant’s choice of jury trial in either-way offences that are likely to result in sentences of three years or less, extend magistrates’ sentencing powers to 18 months and create a new tier of judge-led “swift courts”. He believes, evidently, that the scale of the problem demands structural change.

For many of Lammy’s colleagues, however, the government is trampling on a cherished principle that dates back more than 800 years to Magna Carta: the right to be judged by one’s peers.

In the Commons, Labour MP Stella Creasy noted that jury trials make up only about 3% of criminal cases and questioned how curtailing them could meaningfully reduce the backlog. Another backbencher from the party told me they had concerns that those from disadvantaged or ethnic minority backgrounds would be more likely to end up in front of magistrates or judges who do not look like them or understand their lives, while a jury is likely to be more reflective of wider society.

The number of Labour MPs who are adamantly opposed is not small. Karl Turner, who has only defied the whip four times in thousands of votes since 2010, says he will vote against this and believes there is enough support to stop it in the Commons. One Labour MP told me that they do not believe that Keir Starmer, a former director of public prosecutions, will actually go through with it. They predicted yet another U-turn.

Perhaps most awkward for Lammy is that some of the sharpest ammunition comes from his own past. In 2017, he argued in his landmark review on race and criminal justice that juries act as a filter for prejudice and outperform other parts of the system on fairness. In 2020 he went further, saying criminal trials without juries were a bad idea and that you could not fix the backlog with trials that would be widely perceived as unfair.

The justice secretary has already retreated from the most radical suggestion revealed in a leaked memo last week, which proposed stripping jury trials from all cases with maximum sentences under five years.

One senior lawyer I spoke to this week was adamant that the changes would not address the backlog at all. They and other opponents of the scheme from within the legal profession tell me that removing juries from thousands of cases is a blunt instrument aimed at the wrong target.

They point to structural decay stemming from years of underinvestment and the spiralling complexity of digital evidence. Others highlight the growing number of defendants representing themselves due to cuts in legal aid, which slows down proceedings. The Criminal Bar Association said the proposals brought a wrecking ball to a system that is fundamentally sound and that juries have not caused the backlog.

The experts I’ve asked have also pointed to the fact that juries have delivered acquittals on conscience grounds in the past in cases ranging from anti-racist marches and self-defence to climate protest, outcomes they say would have been unlikely in a judge-only forum. Juries are more likely to be understanding and sympathetic to these causes, they argue, than judges who are predominantly from a wealthier and more conservative social background. There are fears that restricting jury trials will disproportionately harm defendants who already distrust the system, and raise the risk of wrongful convictions.

While the government is adamant this is needed, the strength of opposition has been such that one journalist at the daily Downing Street briefing asked the prime minister’s spokesperson to name a single supporter of the proposals who was not linked to the government. It was a scathing question and an indication of the wider mood.

The government’s challenge is clear. It knows it must deliver radical change quickly to an electorate that is already frustrated. Pressure is building on multiple fronts, the NHS, policing, the economy and justice among them. Finding solutions will not be easy, but the future of the government depends on it.

Rebecca Camber writes:

Police could use street cameras to read our emotions, identifying criminals by their eyes, voice or even the way they walk.

Ministers launched a consultation yesterday on emerging technology that analyses 'motions and emotions' and could help catch criminals, prevent suicides and find missing people.

Under the draconian plans, which critics fear could usher in a 'surveillance state in everything but name', the Home Office is consulting on the use of technology which 'analyses the body and its movements to infer information about the person, such as their emotions or actions'.

In the 10-week consultation, officials are asking the public whether police should be allowed to use such 'inferential technology'.

In a suggested example, CCTV cameras at a suicide hotspot could send an alert to a police station when an individual 'repeatedly paces the area'.

Other examples of biometric technologies under consideration for police use include voice and iris recognition.

Additionally, police could use CCTV cameras to perform 'object recognition' searches, looking for suspects by their clothing, bags, shoes or vehicle.

Keir Starmer is keen to ramp up the use of facial recognition cameras across the country in cities, towns and even villages and is seeking a new legal framework for the use of the technology. Limited facial recognition is already in use across several forces.

Under the consultation, the public is also being asked whether police should be able to access wider government databases, including passport and driver's licence images. Civil servants are working with police to establish a national facial recognition system which will be capable of searching a range of databases including custody images and immigration records.

Crime and Policing Minister Sarah Jones said: 'Confident, safe, and consistent use of facial recognition and similar technologies at significantly greater scale requires a more specific legal framework.

'This will ensure law enforcement can properly harness the power of this technology whilst maintaining public confidence.'

The plans have raised further concerns about the erosion of civil liberties and follow Labour reforms such as digital ID cards and scrapping jury trials.

Former Shadow home secretary David Davis said the technology to read emotions was 'a long way off'.

But he added that giving police access to government databases 'would be the framework of a surveillance state in everything but name'.

Yesterday, the Association of Police and Crime Commissioners separately raised concerns about retrospective facial recognition technology – where CCTV or doorbell camera footage from crime scenes is searched.

The APCC said: 'These technologies are increasingly invasive and sophisticated. If they are to gain the trust and support of the public… they require robust and independent assessment prior to deployment, meaningful oversight and accountability to the public when things go wrong.'

And even the not always reliable Simon Jenkins writes:

One thing to remember about the modern world is that nothing online is ever secure. M&S and Jaguar taught us that. Edward Snowden taught us that. Every week, it seems, some giant corporation sees its system collapse at the touch of a button in an attic. 

The government this week opened a consultation on its plan for nationwide facial recognition and surveillance. You would need only put your face outdoors and walk down the street and authorities will know and record it. Of course we will be assured that all will be kept secure. It will not. Cash or conspiracy will find it out and it will leak.

Already, the consultation is a lie. Facial surveillance is already up and running. London’s Met police claims it has caught more than 100 sex offenders breaking their licence conditions. At least six forces have their town centres plugged in and Whitehall has admitted that it intends the technology to be used nationwide. The policing minister, Sarah Jones, calls facial surveillance “the biggest breakthrough for catching criminals since DNA matching”. It will “help free up police time”. What’s not to like?

Every year sees a new advance of state and corporate intrusion into individual privacy. It does not always succeed. In 2013, the government tried to introduce a nationalised NHS data system that amassed all local GP records of personal health. This, it intended, would help supply A&E departments with possibly life-saving information, and aid research. The data would be surrounded with safeguards against abuse. The collected material would be ostensibly anonymised and sold to industry to help cover costs.

A sceptical public felt the safeguards were not to be trusted. Sooner or later every insurance company in the land would know from personal data how much to charge for insurance. Every employer would know whom not to hire. Since the scheme was voluntary, over a million opted out. The project collapsed three years later.

At much the same time, the former National Security Agency (NSA) contractor Edward Snowden’s revelations of internet surveillance by American and British intelligence services broke cover. Two lessons followed. One was that the services regard any behaviour on their part, however outrageous, as valid for reasons of “national security”. The other was that no computer data was truly safe. With American and British services sharing material hacked from personal archives, safeguards could be ignored and lied about. America was the land of the free, including a government wishing to do what it liked with anyone’s secrets.

The result of a digital free-for-all was satirised in Dave Eggers’ novel The Circle. First many politicians, and then citizens, were encouraged to carry a body camera that recorded and transmitted in real time where they were and what they were doing. It was said to promote political accountability and personal integrity. You could refuse, but those who refused could be identified and hounded down.

Even Eggers did not envisage a state in which every human face seen in public could be instantly identified. Computers can then match it against a national “hitlist” of individuals who have, at some point, crossed the behavioural line, and trace and record their movements. It would be similar to the data that enables banks to rule out, as a suitable customer, anyone who defaults on a payment or steps out of line.

Of course we can see the benefits of facial recognition. In potential hotspots there may be a case for some version of it. Intruding on privacy always sings the best tunes. Surveillance could apparently replace a probation tag. Police forces report that live facial recognition has led to over 1,000 arrests for offences including rape and burglary. It has captured an illegal immigrant; the Home Office says it can be used to find missing children. Jones says it also creates a “hostile environment for prolific sexual offenders”. Who can object when the innocent have nothing to fear? This has long been the slogan of state power.

During the controversy over the NHS database, I shall not forget the cackle of laughter from a computer expert when I asked him about Whitehall’s safeguards. “If there is one thing we know,” he said, “it is that no modern safeguard can beat the modern hacker.” As for when the safeguarder – the state – is also the hacker, there is no stopping it. During the Snowden revelations, the NSA was using the Prism system to gain illicit access to Google, Apple, Microsoft and Yahoo, and even inducing Microsoft to circumvent its own encryption.

We already know what internet companies can do with evidence of our needs and preferences, scraped from our emails. They use it to make money. Ten years ago, we refused to allow our NHS details to be collated by Whitehall in the knowledge that they would inevitably leak. For the same reason we should deny permission for the state to track and record our private lives. I doubt if the state will listen.