Restriction of Jury Trials

Commons Urgent Question

The following Answer to an Urgent Question was given in the House of Commons on Monday 8 December.

“This Government inherited an emergency in our criminal courts. Record and rising caseloads are leaving victims and many accused who are seeking to clear their name facing agonising delays, while some defendants game the system in the hope that their accusers simply give up on justice. We inherited a system in which, quite truly, justice delayed is justice denied. That is why we asked Sir Brian Leveson to undertake his independent review of the criminal courts. He presented us with his report, and we considered it carefully.

On Tuesday, the Deputy Prime Minister announced the Government’s proposals in the light of that report, following many of the recommendations. In announcing part of our plan to tackle that emergency, he centred victims. He commented that victims of rape are ‘pulling out’ of trials and told LBC that

‘60 per cent are pulling out of cases’

before they come to trial. That statement is accurate. It is unacceptable that around 60% of victims who report rape drop out of the criminal system.

After speaking to victims, campaign organisations and those who represent those victims and support them, we know that, for many, the fact that their trial may not come to court for several years is a key factor in their deciding to withdraw from the process or perhaps not even to report the case at all. The system was not designed for a scenario in which victims face such delays for justice. No one in this House thinks that the system is anything other than broken, which means that we are failing the British public.

On the second part of the right honourable Gentleman’s question, the vast majority of cases—the less serious but still important everyday cases, which comprise around 90% of all criminal trials—are already heard in our magistrates’ courts, where cases continue to be dealt with swiftly and robustly. Our magistrates hear around 1.3 million cases a year, and it is not unusual to have an open caseload of more than 360,000 cases, as is currently the case in our magistrates’ courts. That ensures that there is around six months’ worth of work ready to be heard. We know that our magistrates’ courts deal with equivalent cases—those trials for either-way cases that can be heard in either the magistrates’ court or the Crown Court—four times faster. We are working to bring in new and diverse magistrates over the next 12 months, and we will continue to recruit at high levels in future years.

Ultimately, we must ensure that the Crown Court has the capacity to deal with those who commit the most serious crimes, so that victims do not have to face those agonising delays and do not withdraw before their case even gets to court. Justice is simply not being served in that situation, and the Government will not watch idly while the system continues to fail those victims. It is for that reason that we are bringing forward our bold proposals and reforms, coupled with record investment—to ensure that victims and the wider British public are served and so that we can put to bed once and for all justice delayed being justice denied”.

My Lords, the Secretary of State for Justice recently stated, in the context of rape prosecution delays, that 60% of victims pull out of their cases because

“the trauma of waiting is too hard”—

a claim that was repeated in government briefings. The overwhelming response from experienced criminal lawyers is that this figure is misleading and that, as one leading King’s Counsel commented, the Justice Secretary’s remarks were “cynical or staggeringly gullible”. Given that the Crown Prosecution Service’s own figure for those who drop out of rape complaints due to delay is 8%, will the Minister ask the Secretary of State for Justice to correct Hansard and remove his inaccurate statement from the record?

My Lords, it is an enormous pleasure to face the noble and learned Lord again, after such a short time, on pretty much exactly the same topic. The statistic given by my right honourable and learned friend the Deputy Prime Minister, Lord Chancellor and Secretary of State refers to, if you like, the journey taken by a victim from the moment of the decision being made to report an offence to the police to the ultimate disposal of the case in the Crown Court. The statistic that over 60%, or roughly around 60%, drop out at that stage is entirely correct. During that process, pre-charge adult rape victim attrition is 58% and post-charge adult rape attrition is 10%. So the statistic is correct, and it is a terrible indictment upon the system that this is happening. Every single one of those figures is a person who did not see justice for what they say happened to them.

My Lords, the noble and learned Lord, Lord Keen, is right to point to the CPS figures and to what was reported in the Sunday Times. The important point is the post-charge attrition, not the journey from reported rape all the way through to prosecution, which is what the Minister relied on. The CPS figures show that only 9% of adult rape cases were lost through victim attrition after charge, which is when trial delays come into play. That was down from 11.4% last year. The remaining cases abandoned were dropped before charge. I repeat the noble and learned Lord’s question: should the Lord Chancellor not apologise for the misleading use of statistics? Can the Minister further explain why the Government believe that the right to jury trial for either-way offences should depend only on the likely length of a prison sentence, so excluding juries for almost all offences of dishonesty, when even a minor conviction for dishonesty could, for many defendants, destroy their careers, livelihoods, reputations, families and even lives?

I repeat what I said to the noble and learned Lord, Lord Keen of Elie: it is a pleasure to see the noble Lord, Lord Marks of Henley-on-Thames, on exactly the same topic that we dealt with a short time ago.

I do not understand why it is felt that, from the victim’s perspective, it makes any difference at all whether it is post-charge or pre-charge. A victim dropping out is a victim dropping out and not getting the case that they thought they wanted to see during the court process. The fact is that there are all sorts of reasons why victims decide they do not want to participate in the process any more. There seems to be a suggestion that, in the pre-charge period, those victims are living underneath some kind of rock and not hearing about the problems in the criminal justice system, including the amount of time that victims have to wait to have their cases heard. The fact is that, in any event, even 9% dropping out post-charge is far too high. The statistics show that the average wait in the Crown Court for victims of rape and serious sexual offences is 391 days, which is an awfully long time—over a year—for them to wait.

I turn to the second of the noble Lord’s questions on the length of sentence. The reason for that is that cases that ultimately result in shorter sentences tend to be shorter and less complicated cases to hear, so they are much quicker. It has never been the case, as noble Lords know, that all cases in the criminal justice system are heard by juries; 90% of cases are heard in the magistrates’ court. This Government are proposing simply to move that line a little to ensure that the most serious cases, which are going to get the longest sentences in the Crown Court, are dealt with more quickly.

My Lords, does the Minister not worry that, in waiting and hoping that their case might be brought to trial, the suffering of so many rape victims has been weaponised in an attack on the jury system, one of the fundamental aspects of our democracy and of a free society? Their pain is being used to attack something that matters to all of us. Is that not overly cynical and doing a real disservice to those women, particularly, who are waiting for justice in relation to rape accusations?

I hope that the noble Baroness is not referring to the Government I am part of when she says that the experiences of rape victims are being weaponised. This Government did not come into power with the objective of trying to remove jury trials from anybody. The point is that the system is not working for anyone. Some of those most severely affected are those who have made complaints of rape and serious sexual offences, where the length of time that they have to wait can have terrible effects on them. I am not suggesting that it does not have a terrible effect on everybody, but the system recognises that it can be particularly difficult for people in those categories of cases. It is not a question of weaponisation. The one thing I have tried to be very careful not to do is to make party political points about this. This is something of an emergency. It has taken a long time to get to where we are and it is going to take time to alter it. We have to have a radical plan, and this is the plan that was recommended by Sir Brian Leveson. It would be reckless of the Government to commission an independent review and then not act on its recommendations.

My Lords, I have enormous sympathy for the Minister in facing the huge backlog that exists in our criminal justice system. I am grateful to her for laying out the thinking behind the Lord Chancellor’s position more clearly than the Lord Chancellor himself has been able to do. Can she update us on work between police forces and the Crown Prosecution Service when it comes to making sure that rape and serious sexual offences are brought to court more quickly? Is it the case that some police forces have been resistant to the idea that the speed with which these cases are processed should be published so that we can hold accountable those police forces that are most reluctant to ensure speedy justice?

The noble Lord makes an important point. There are delays between report of an offence and charge. The reasons for those can be very complicated. I used to work for the Crown Prosecution Service and I know how difficult it can be. An awful lot of investigation has to go on. Quite often, such investigations are looking at events that took place an awfully long time ago. It is probably fair to say that everybody thinks that we could and should do better. The Home Office deals with matters in relation to the police, but I will ensure that I write to the noble Lord and answer his question, which is a perfectly proper one.

Will the Minister condemn the remarks of one of her colleagues in the other place, who smeared defenders of the right to trial by jury as men in suits defending a Magna Carta myth? In fact, the right to trial by jury dates to before Magna Carta, to Henry II, who, I point out, for the benefit of the Justice Secretary, came after Henry I and not before.