Crown Court Backlog

At the moment there are between 75-80,000 trials waiting to be heard in the Crown Court. The government is looking at a number of ways in which the backlog might be attacked.

Firstly, there is a proposal that offences with a maximum sentence of 3 years may be heard by a new tier of Crown Court’s in which a judge with sit with two magistrates rather than a jury. This would save on the time that is currently taken to explain the court procedure to each new jury; it would also be expected to reduce the time to make decisions.

Secondly, there is a proposal to remove the right to jury trial to a number of relatively minor cases where sentences can be expected to be modest. This would avoid longer jury trials with all the delay and cost where the issues are straight forward and the sentences likely to be very low.

Thirdly, there is a proposal in particularly complex cases, frauds, money laundering etc. could be dealt with by a judge sitting alone who is particularly experienced in that sort of financial matter. This should again save on time taken to explain complicated matters to a lay jury. The decision making process is again likely to be quicker.

Next, there is a proposal that defendants be told in open court the sort of sentence that they could expect if convicted after trial, in comparison to the sentence they might receive after an early guilty plea. It is thought that hearing the figures from a judge would have a much bigger impact on many defendants than simply hearing it from their own representatives.

In next weeks blog, I will try to explain problems that may arise and criticisms that have leveled out these new proposals.