Sharp Focus

Emily Dugan writes:

When Josh Parker was caught supplying heroin and crack cocaine as part of a Merseyside county lines drugs operation, he initially denied the charges.

With no previous convictions, he was bailed in October to await trial at Liverpool crown court.

In another part of the country a case like his might have disappeared into the black hole of the court backlog for years on end. But Parker, 20, was in the wrong place for that.

“This is the best court in the country,” Parker’s barrister, Paul Becker, said. “If all the courts were like this there’d be no backlog. It’s incredibly efficient.”

The average wait from charge to trial in Liverpool crown court is 206 days, compared to an average of 321 in England and Wales.

As the government presses ahead with legislation that would halve the number of trials heard by jury to tackle a backlog of around 80,000 cases, many believe the unique approach in Liverpool offers an alternative solution.

Parker’s case fell under a local initiative to fast-track trials and encourage plea bargains that has helped it buck the national trend of a system in crisis.

Trials cancelled on the day they are due to begin are a major source of delays nationwide, leaving gaps in court time that cannot be filled at short notice. It typically happens because a last-minute guilty plea is entered or the prosecution withdraws realising their case is too weak.

Illustration of a box labeled "CANCELLED" filled with papers, next to a stack of more papers with a red folder marked with an "X" on top.

Judges in Merseyside noticed that the type of trials most likely to fall away on the first day — and therefore cause havoc with the court lists — were those involving uncomplicated drugs offences and domestic abuse with defendants on bail.

The accused would plead not guilty in all pre-trial hearings and then change to guilty on day one of the trial, enjoying the freedom of not being imprisoned for however long it took for their moment in the dock to arrive.

To combat this, Liverpool launched Operation Expedite in June 2023 to fast-track these trials as soon as possible — ideally within 20 weeks. Judges were told to encourage lawyers to make very clear to defendants that an early guilty plea will result in reduced sentences.

Of 563 cases listed under the programme between June 2023 and October last year, 56 per cent entered a guilty plea at the first crown court hearing. A strict timetable of pre-trial hearings, the first within four weeks of that initial appearance, continues the pressure for a plea before trial, with another 20 per cent pleading guilty at these.

In the end, only 6 per cent of defendants in the scheme changed to a guilty plea on the first day of trial and only 15 trials went ahead. Nationally, the average number of trials cracked on day one because of a last-minute change to a guilty plea or the prosecution dropping the case is 31 per cent.

In Parker’s case, the prosecution served evidence in good time — and the trial itself was also expedited, with a date for later this year. A hearing was arranged to give Parker a chance to change his position on seeing the evidence, with the knowledge that his sentence would be reduced if he changed to a guilty plea then.

Becker told Judge Ian Harris as the hearing began: “I’ve had a lengthy conference this morning with him and his parents”. He asked that the charges be read to the court again. This time a nervous and clean-cut Parker gave a new answer: “guilty”.

Harris ordered probation to put together a pre-sentence report for Parker — an indication that any jail sentence may be suspended — though he still told him to be ready to lose his liberty.

Liverpool’s tactics are counterintuitive because most courts list less serious cases where defendants are on bail as the lowest priority. By turning this on its head they have had significant results.

In Manchester’s crown courts, where the workload is similar, the typical wait from charge to trial is above the national average at 359 days, according to analysis of official data by the Criminal Bar Association.

Becker said: “You go thirty miles down the road and it’s incredibly different. The trial might’ve been in three years’ time. People say if the trial is 2030, why would you plead now?”

That morning, as barristers pulled wigs and gowns from lockers, tweaked arguments and took last-minute gulps of coffee, the robing room at Liverpool crown court looked much like any other. The conversation, however, was notably different.

While the chatter of lawyers elsewhere in the country is consumed with the near-collapse of their place of work, complaints were notably absent. “This is one of the most efficient courts in the country,” criminal barrister Andrew Sinker said. “It’s run very well.”

Another barrister, who also sits as a judge, said: “This place has never got out of control and you do need to give appropriate credit to the resident judges here. If your trial is not until 2029 you plead not guilty because there’s three years when things can happen.”

The court’s resident judge Andrew Menary, the man behind the innovations, has built a reputation as a force of nature who combines intolerance of inefficiency with a collaborative approach to ensuring his building runs smoothly.

Once a month, Menary leads a meeting of court users, including judges, lawyers and administrative staff, to iron out logistical niggles.

There are other factors in Liverpool’s favour. Menary is known to boast that the Eighties red-brick tower is a “great building that works, whether it’s pretty or not”. Unlike many neighbouring court centres, it is not plagued by the leaks and heating problems in crumbling buildings that leave multiple courtrooms empty every day. It even has a working canteen.

Liverpool’s legal community is relatively compact and closely knit, making negotiation between prosecution and defence more efficient. There also appear to be fewer problems with prisoner transport than in many other courts, perhaps because Liverpool Prison — a centre for remand — is four miles away and can hold about 800 inmates.

David Lammy has proposed that the only way to tackle the seriousness of the crisis in the criminal courts is to create judge-only “swift courts” for cases carrying sentences of up to three years. He claimed that replacing juries with judges would cut trial times by 20 per cent, but analysis published last month by the Institute for Government found that overall it would save less than 2 per cent of court time and that “productivity is at the heart of the problem”.

The think tank pointed to Liverpool as somewhere the government should examine closely to understand “what is driving differences in court productivity” instead of focusing on a quick fix. 

In the second part of Sir Brian Leveson’s review of the criminal courts system, published last week, Liverpool was also mentioned as an efficiency success story. Over 728 pages, Leveson gave fine detail on how the courts could be made more efficient, but still claimed reform to jury trials was needed to tackle a system “on the brink of collapse”.

Proponents of what has been managed by the Mersey say it should give pause to anyone justifying major system change.

Mary Prior KC, a criminal barrister who sits as a part-time judge, said: “Before we take away fundamental rights of members of the public to decide the guilt or innocence of fellow members of their community, why don’t we look at what Liverpool have done and see, using pilot schemes across the country, whether it can be replicated? Because if it can, we will save the country billions of pounds.

“For some reason we seem to be desperate to trample all over everything we’ve ever done with the narrative, which is repeated and repeated, ‘nothing else will work’. Well, Liverpool works, so why don’t we try to use the Liverpool model?”

Labour’s Kim Johnson is the local MP and also chairs the parliamentary group on miscarriages of justice. She has been a fierce opponent of changes to trial by jury and was in court last month to see what lessons it offered to an overstretched system.

She said: “My visit to Liverpool crown court brought one message into sharp focus: the right to trial by jury must be protected… It should serve as an example for what can be delivered nationally, offering solutions to tackle inefficiency and rebuild trust in our criminal justice system. If we are serious about restoring confidence and improving outcomes, we must confront the real causes of delay — and defend, not diminish, the right to trial by jury.”

The significant efforts made to avoid a last-minute change of plea were evident across the building. When one defendant caught with a large quantity of cocaine indicated he would plead guilty to possession but not intent to supply, the judge delayed the hearing by another half hour in the hope that his barrister could spell out the sentence reduction if he pleaded that day, telling him: “I’m going to put this back a bit because I don’t want to rush it.”

The man’s barrister, Jason Smith, said: “This judge will give a third off sentence. It should be 25 per cent at this stage but he’ll give full credit and will listen with a degree of realism and pragmatism.”

After half an hour of trying to spell out the situation to his client, it is clear the scheme does not persuade everyone. But the man will not be waiting long to find out his fate: his trial is set for July.