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Graham Smith
Jan Thompson
Graham Mumby-Croft


Paul Laxton
Issue 94 Spring 2026
LEAVE OUR JURIES ALONE

The Government is busily engaged with piloting its criminal justice reforms through parliament. Probably the most controversial feature is the proposal to deprive defendants facing a charge or charges who, if convicted, would face a custodial sentence of three years or less. The impact would fall mainly on defendants accused of ‘either way’ offences where he or she can elect to be tried either in a Magistrates Court or by jury in a Crown Court. 

The Secretary of State for Justice, David Lammy, is also proposing to apply the change retrospectively to defendants who have been charged, but whose cases have yet to come to court. Applications for judicial review are inevitable, and likely to be based on Human Rights legislation, passed by a Labour government, and supposedly the guiding light of the Prime Minister. A case of selective amnesia? 

Juries are not perfect and they do wrongfully convict defendants from time to time. However, wrongful convictions are often easy to explain. Juries are always more likely to convict the innocent where there is police malpractice, most commonly the failure to disclose evidence rather than the confessions extracted under duress before the Police and Criminal Evidence Act of 1984 stamped it out. Stephen Downing, wrongly convicted of the ‘Bakewell Tart’ murder, is one of the most notorious victims of pre-P.A.C.E. wrongdoing. Juries are also prone to error where the prosecution has the monopoly on forensic expertise. The ’shaken baby’ cases and the initial conviction of Deputy Headmaster Sion Jenkins, are classic examples. Trials being held amidst moral panics also weaken the protection the jury system gives to defendants. 
 
So why does this matter? Well, it’s far from obvious that judges will do any better, and plenty to suggest they will do worse. I can remember being a Principal Officer at HMP Wakefield when Private Lee Clegg of the Parachute Regiment was serving life for the murder of a Northern Ireland civilian during the ‘troubles.’ Private Clegg was tried by a judge sitting without a jury in Ulster rather than a jury of his peers in England. Justice was only served when Private Clegg was cleared on appeal. There is also the very real concern that Judges are not ordinary people; on the contrary they are highly educated members of the nation’s Metropolitan Elite, and there would be no protection against the ‘woke’ prejudices they may have imbibed.

Mr Lammy has defended the proposals on the grounds that the backlog in cases being heard is impacting on victims of crime, particularly victims of serious sexual offences. Critics of the bill are adamant that the restrictions will not save time, not least because of the need for Judges to compose and deliver written reports in support of their verdict in the proposed new intermediate courts. The Prime Minister claimed that only around a quarter of cases currently tried by jury would be affected. The Financial Times suggested that the figure would be more like half of the 15,000 cases currently heard in front of a jury annually. It said that around 2,500 cases would be tried in the new ‘judge only’ courts with a further 5,000 being tried by Magistrates.

The absence of a jury from cases where one would have normally been present sends the defendant naked into the courtroom. The defendant’s future is in the hands of an agent of the state, not his peers. For those whose cases are deemed suitable to be handed over to magistrates, there will not even be the protection of a written judgement. Finally, the notion that the interests of victims outweigh those of defendants is a bogus dichotomy that undermines the principal of a fair trial.

PAUL LAXTON