Crown Court Criminal Case Backlog

Lord Faulks Excerpts

Thursday 20th March 2025 Lords Chamber

[Lord Faulks (Non-Afl)]

My Lords, I too congratulate the noble Baroness, Lady Longfield, on her excellent speech. I declare an interest as a practising barrister and a former recorder of the Crown Court. There is no doubt about the disastrous consequences of delays. They are unfair to defendants and to witnesses, particularly complainants, and they bring the whole justice system into disrepute.

The Constitution Committee considered the effect of Covid on court backlogs when I was a member of it. It was right to do so; it is a constitutional issue. I was anxious to explore the possibility of reducing jury trials and replacing them with a mode of trial by judge only, or by a judge and two magistrates. My colleagues were a little uneasy about this suggestion, although I spoke about it in your Lordships’ House. I even asked a question addressed to the noble and learned Lord, Lord Bellamy. I suggested that a defendant at least should have the right to choose to be tried by a judge rather than a jury—a pretty modest proposal, but I was met with a very firm response in the negative.

It is time to think quite seriously about jury trial. Of course we have a strong romantic attachment to it. We know very little about why juries come to their decisions. Anecdotes about the process are not always reassuring. We infantilise juries by only allowing the admission of evidence that we think they can handle, rather than allowing them to decide what is important. We do not require any reasons to be given for their decisions, which makes the appeal process difficult.

It is worth standing back and considering why it is desirable that more than 90% of all offences are tried by those with expertise—either district judges or magistrates who are trained and have a legal adviser—but, for the 5% or so of the most serious offences, we think it wise to allow them to be tried by a random selection of citizens who will, no doubt, do their best. It should, perhaps, be borne in mind that we used to have jury trials for personal injury and libel cases. Their absence is not missed. Nor are juries a universal feature of the criminal justice system. Of course, I pay regard to what the noble Lord, Lord Carlile, said about this. I congratulate him on bringing forward this debate.

Three minutes is not long enough to develop this important topic, but I would commend a chapter by the late and much missed Lord Brown of Eaton-under-Heywood in his book, Second Helpings. It was more than 50 years ago that Lord Roskill suggested that fraud cases should not be tried by juries.

These backlogs allow us to think about the future of this mode of trial. I hope this Government are rather more amenable than their predecessor to the possibility of at least restricting trial by jury, perhaps through intermediate trials. It is not a good idea to abolish something because of the backlogs, but the backlogs allow us to think carefully about what we need to do by way of trials.