Crown Court (Recording and Broadcasting) Order 2020

Lord Thomas of Gresford Excerpts

Monday 8th June 2020 Lords Chamber

[Lord Thomas of Gresford (LD) [V]]

My Lords, this significant development is being introduced by statutory instrument without any up-to-date consultation. As the Explanatory Memorandum shows, the Government rely on a consultation from 2005—15 years ago—to justify its introduction in 2020. That is not proper consultation. Broadcasting has changed since 2005, as have the courts. At a practical level what control will be exercised over the broadcast of sentencing remarks on the internet, and on social media, which was not at all obvious in 2005? Article 10 imposes restrictions on use, but are they enforceable in the current age?

The Explanatory Memorandum makes it clear, as the Minister did a moment ago, that the policy behind this provision is

“to increase transparency in the justice system and public engagement with, and understanding of, what happens in courts.”

To confine the broadcasting proceedings to the judge’s sentencing remarks seems to do little to achieve those objectives. In a straightforward case, the sentencing remarks may be only very brief. Even in a serious case, they may reflect little of the issues played out in the trial process. In R v Chin-Charles last year, the Lord Chief Justice made it clear that sentencing remarks should be merely a brief explanation of the reasons for sentencing; the issues in the trial should not be rehearsed. The noble and learned Baroness, Lady Hallett, was a party to that judgment. I cannot imagine the public waiting anxiously to be educated at their television sets, or at their laptops and iPads, at the precise moment the judge comes into court to deliver his sentence. Surely providing clips for news programmes must be low on the priorities of a court service desperately requiring money for repairs and refurbishing.

On the issue of cost, in the Court of Appeal project the broadcasters agreed to bear the cost of installing and operating the cameras. Have they agreed to bear the cost of these provisions, both for now and stretching into the future? If not, what is the projected cost? In any event, the time and money spent even in the training of court staff cannot be justified for the limited purpose of “educating the public” or upholding the dignity of the court. There is a lengthy waiting list for trials in the Crown Court and the focus should be on speeding up the trial process.

It used to be said that the pace of a trial was linked to the judge’s pen. Today it is more likely to be dictated by his or her ability on the keyboard, but it remains the judge’s responsibility to take a full note of the proceedings to assist him in his rulings and to remind the jury in his summing up of the evidence that has been given. If courts are to be fitted up with cameras, why should they not be used for wider purposes—let us get into this century—to record the evidence and demeanour of witnesses, should the jury wish to refresh their memories; to assist counsel in the preparation of argument before the jury; or to take the pressure of note-taking away from the judge? Their use will always be regulated by the judge in the interests of justice.

We have seen in this House, with the detailed and indexed recordings of proceedings on parliamentlive.tv, how quickly the record can be accessed. Like some elderly Members of this House, jurors can be trained to use the system. The coming generations, I fear, will of course require no such training. I remember a time when some jurors were illiterate and could not read the oath. I have to say that the defence rarely objected to their serving on the jury. A Daily Telegraph in a prospective juror’s pocket was enough to have him off. But today’s jurors are frequently faced with documents and photographs online and they deal with them. They are capable of dealing with them. They could deal equally with a filmed record of the proceedings.

My remarks apply equally to the inclusion of family proceedings in the current Court of Appeal arrangements. I suggest that the Minister withdraws these SIs and has a proper consultation in today’s terms to consider where they should go, and to encourage broader use of recordings in Crown Court proceedings.