Criminals will be stopped from “gaming the system” by choosing trial by jury in order to increase the chances of proceedings collapsing, the courts minister has said, promising to enact radical changes to limit jury trials by the next election.
Drug dealers and career criminals were “laughing in the dock” knowing cases can take years to come to trial, Sarah Sackman said, while warning that inaction would be a road to “chaos and ruin”.
Ministers will legislate to remove the right to trial by jury for thousands of cases in one of the biggest and most controversial overhauls of the justice system in England and Wales in generations – promising the changes will significantly shrink the court backlog by 2029.
The Ministry of Justice is braced for a backlash from barristers and the judiciary as it presses ahead with the measures to tackle a backlog of nearly 80,000 cases, which will create a proposed new judge-only division of the crown court to hear some cases.
Sackman said the “stakes are incredibly high” as she prepared to announce early next month that vast numbers of cases will now be heard by judges and magistrates rather than juries, a response to recommendations in a review by Sir Brian Leveson.
Speaking at Wood Green crown court, Sackman said victims of severe sexual assault were routinely told it could take four years for their cases to come to court.
On the morning she spoke to the Guardian, the minister watched a bail hearing for a case involving severe sexual assault, one unlikely to come to a full trial until 2028. Some of the offences in the case, including strangulation, beating and nonconsensual sexual images, took place as far back as 2020.
“I can’t think of a greater responsibility in government than ensuring that our justice system works,” she said. “The sense of duty that I feel is enormous.”
Changes to jury trials are opposed by 90% of the Criminal Bar Association, which has warned that ending the right would be an unacceptable price to pay and undermine what was a fundamental principle for British justice. It said that the British public had a deep faith in the jury system – and that changes risked a loss of trust.
Sackman said she understood why people “fear change” to the justice system. “Behind these 80,000 odd cases that are waiting in the backlog, there are individual stories and individual lives being put on hold behind each and every one of those cases,” she said.
“No one is being served in the case that we saw. Not the accused, who’s currently being remanded in jail, not the victim who’s been waiting since she first reported her crime years ago.
“I’ve spoken to victims and survivors who tell me they’ve lost their jobs, they suffered mental breakdown all the while that they were waiting. More victims and witnesses are pulling out of the process because they cannot wait that long. That is compelling illustration of justice delayed being justice denied.”
Graph charting jury trial delays
Judges at Wood Green who spoke to Sackman described it as “morale-sapping” to see defendants opt for jury trials in the hope of collapsing their cases.
“They are coming into court and laughing in the face of the justices, knowing they can go back out on the streets and commit further offences,” she said.
Sackman said she was in no doubt that removing the choice of a jury trial from thousands of defendants was the right balance, suggesting that all but the most serious theft cases as well as complex fraud cases would be among those now overseen by judges or magistrates.
Defendants can chose where their case is heard in 40% of cases. In 2014 only 8% of the those on trial for an either-way offence elected for a jury trial. By 2022 this had more than doubled.
“Do we think that someone who has stolen a bottle of whisky from a minimart should receive the right to trial by jury?” she said. “Do we think that someone who has been involved in a serious fraud involving cryptocurrency that we should have a jury sat in court for a year or more hearing such a case?
“For me, the priority is swift justice, fair justice, over prioritising a defendant’s right to choose where that trial is heard. By the time that trial comes to court, everyone’s memories are a little bit more fuzzy. If you’re years away from when it took place, can you really get justice at all? That’s not fair.”
The government will legislate in the new year to enact most of the recommendations in Leveson’s report which says the backlog for so many serious cases has become so catastrophic that extreme action is necessary.
He warned in the report, published earlier this year, that increased investment alone would not be enough to tackle the backlog which is expected to reach 100,000 by 2028 without action.
Racial equality groups have also expressed concern at the reforms – and at the unrepresentative nature of the judiciary against juries. Sackman said that was one of the issues at the forefront of the mind of David Lammy when he became justice secretary and took over steering the changes from Shabana Mahmood, who initially proposed them.
“No one cares more deeply in government about the challenge presented by racial disparities and disproportionality in our justice system than the deputy prime minister who undertook the Lammy review when he was in opposition,” she said.
Judicial diversity statistics show that ethnic minorities make up 12% of judges in England and Wales, while the representation of black judges has remained unchanged at 1% for a decade. Criminal justice charities have said they expect a reduction in jury trials to lead to more convictions and potential miscarriages of justice.
The Institute for Government’s Cassia Rowland said in a recent report the government and Leveson’s report had thus far failed to make the case for the changes and that many of the issues identified by Leveson would be solved by increased court productivity – fewer trials are being scheduled, but more are being cancelled at the last minute.