Former Law society president warns restricting jury trials risks longer waits for victims and defendants as magistrates’ courts face record caseloads
Proposals to restrict access to jury trials as part of plans to tackle the criminal courts backlog could lead to longer delays in magistrates’ courts and risks for victims of domestic abuse, Richard Atkinson, former president of the Law Society of England and Wales has warned in an interview with The Telegraph.
He said: ‘Victims and defendants in magistrates’ courts were already facing delays of more than a year because of record backlogs of nearly 380,000 cases in England and Wales, this could easily rise to four or five years under the reforms, which will require magistrates to undertake thousands more trials each year.’
He added: ‘cases most likely to be taken over by magistrates would be more serious assaults, of which a large proportion relates to domestic violence, There will be your more serious cases of coercive and controlling behaviour, of stalking, of serious harassment. These are very vulnerable victims whose cases are known to have very high attrition rates.’
He warned that delays in progressing such cases risked allowing offending behaviour to escalate where perpetrators were not dealt with promptly.
He concluded, ‘These aren’t merely academic discussions around numbers, these are people’s lives and potentially have really serious consequences.’
Separately, giving evidence during the first session of the House of Commons Justice Select Committee examining the Courts and Tribunals Bill, Atkinson warned that current allocation rules could produce inconsistent outcomes depending on defendants’ previous convictions rather than the seriousness of the allegation itself.
He told MPs: ‘If you are a heavily convicted person, you’re likely to get a longer sentence and will get a jury trial. If you’re a person of good character with the same set of facts, you may find yourself not facing a sentence as long and you will not get a jury trial. The loss of character, the impact on your employment and ability to hold yourself high in your local community is really important, but that’s not going to be a factor in determining allocation.’