What These Provisions Will Mean In Practice

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The prime minister’s spokesperson is right that “only by using a combination of reform, investment and efficiency, can we hope to turn the tide on the backlog and deliver the faster and fairer justice the victims deserve” in the criminal courts. But curtailing the right to jury trial will have a minimal effect on the backlog.

Jury trials are not the cause of the backlog. Furthermore, the government’s proposals will disproportionately impact Black complainants, witnesses and defendants.

The random selection of jurors from local communities ensures that they are far more likely to reflect the cultural heritage of people appearing in court.

In 2025, there were only five circuit judges who identified as Black or Black British. Curtailing jury trial is bound to add to what David Lammy described in 2017 as a “chronic trust deficit” towards the criminal justice system. 

Nic Madge

Retired circuit judge, St Albans, Hertfordshire

And as tweeted by the superlative Joanna Hardy-Susskind:

Hello, there. Have you heard David Lammy MP and Sarah Sackman MP talking about people stealing bottles of whisky and swiping mobile telephones as examples of people who should not get jury trials? Well. I’d like to tell you a story. I would like you to imagine it’s nighttime. And you are about to go out there now, in the dark, in the rain, in your car. I want you to imagine you turn the key, you put the windscreen wipers on, put your lights on, click your seatbelt in, and off you go. You’re alone in the car. Your phone is plugged in to use the sat nav, out of habit more than anything else. But you don’t touch it. You look ahead at the road and concentrate in the dark.

And then. It happens. The bang. The noise. You think it might be an animal. A dog, perhaps. A fox? No. It was too loud, too hard and people are screaming. Why are they screaming like that? Whatever you hit, it hit your front passenger side. Were you looking? You’re sure you were. The person you just hit, someone’s loved one, someone’s everything, has died. They were on a bicycle and they first collided with the car and then hit the road. You panic. You are devastated. You haven’t drunk a drop. You weren’t on a phone. You were under the speed limit. Right?

You are arrested and there is an investigation. An expert in motoring collisions is instructed by the police & they conclude your driving fell below the standard required to be lawful and their opinion is you were going too fast in the rain. You dispute this. There will be a trial. You are charged with causing death by careless or inconsiderate driving contrary to section 2B of the Road Traffic Act 1988. It’s an either way case, just like David Lammy has been on the telly talking about. It’s less serious than death by dangerous driving - but it’s serious. The maximum penalty is five years.

Now. Today. Right now. You would be able to choose to be tried by a jury. 12 voices. 12 experiences. 12 votes. And, you may wish to trust me on this, the vast majority of you would choose a jury to determine a sensitive and delicate case like this involving expert witnesses. Whether the Magistrates said they could keep your trial or not, you would choose the Crown Court for jury trial. Your solicitor would instruct your own expert. The deceased’s family - they would be treated with the solemnity that is seen in a Crown courtroom. This is the table setting out the starting points and ranges taken from the sentencing guideline (with ranges) for causing death by careless driving. A is the most serious starting point. The harm in all cases is recognised to be serious because someone has lost their life:

Now. What David Lammy MP is proposing is threefold: First. Magistrates’ powers might be upped to 2 years. Second. You will no longer be allowed to choose jury trial. Third. Your automatic right to appeal the outcome of a Magistrates’ trial (re-hearing) is being taken away. Now. Let’s look at the guideline again. The starting point even for category A is two years. Their powers are two years. And so, to leave the Magistrates’ Court your case has to be higher in the ‘A’ range. All of the others get a summary trial. In a case where a life has been lost. And, even if your likely sentence is above two years, it would have to be above three years to get a jury trial under this proposed new law. Cases between two to three years would be tried by a judge simply sitting alone without a jury. 

I think reasonable people - on either side of such an awful case - would be horrified by this change to their rights. And it’s time we started spelling it out. This isn’t about whisky. It’s not about phones. This is about the worst moments of human lives being categorised. On and on it goes. The ABH guideline. The Sexual Assault guideline. The Fraud guideline. The Affray guideline. Thousands and thousands of cases falling in a range where people will have no choice but to have the worst moments of their lives tried summarily - or by judge alone.

Summary justice has a place in our society. Those who volunteer to administer justice from their community to their community play a valued and valuable role. But it is not controversial to say that serious crimes should be heard in the Crown Court - and not summarily. It’s vital to talk about rape victims, and important to correctly categorise whisky theft, but - important too - to have grown-up conversations about what these provisions will mean in practice for tens of thousands of people. And what they - one rainy night - might mean for you.