Debate on the conduct of rape trials is ’not fully informed’ and risks undermining public confidence in the justice system, the lady chief justice has said. Addressing the Bar Council’s annual conference yesterday, Baroness Carr of Walton-on-the-Hill said tthat ’judges are fundamentally committed to a fair trial’ and ’completely understand the distress and difficulties facing rapec omplainants when they give evidence’.

Speaking to reporters she warned that parliament must be ’extremely cautious’  over moves to dictate the directions given to juries in rape trials. She said that each rape trial was ’nuanced and fact specific’ and added that judges were already doing ’a really good job’ directing juries.

Carr said that the courts have been addressing these issues for almost two decades, with judges giving directions to juries on how to deal with rape myths and stereotypes and the use of screens to protect complainants.  In addition, she said that judges are also assisted by the Crown Court compendium – produced by the Judicial College in England and Wales – which provides guidance on directing the jury in Crown court trials and which she said was regularly reveiwed.

Judges who undertake rape trials, said Carr, are ’specially trained by the Judicial College’, adding that the training is recognised around as the world as “showcasing best practice”.

Her comments came in the wake of criticism by the prime minister, Metropolitan Police commissioner and victims’ commissioner of conduct in the trial of former comedian Russell Brand. Brand was found guilty of one count of rape and three counts of sexual assault after a four-week trial at Southwark Crown Court.

Following criticism of some of the submissions made to the jury by the defence barrister Ian Winter KC, Andy Burnham said the government needs to make sure that victims in rape cases do not feel like they are on trial. He told Times Radio that the government needs to ’constantly look’ at how rape trials are conducted to support alleged victims better in court.

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The victims’ commissioner Claire Waxman, backed by the Metrolpolital Police commissioner Sir Mark Rowley, called for a legal duty on  judges to direct juries on rape myths and misconceptions in every rape trial.

In the House of Lords, the former justice minister Baroness Levitt KC, said it was ’now time for parliament to require’ judges to give rape myth directions to juries before any evidence is heard,.

Asked by the Gazette if the government was going to legislate to mandate the directions given by judges to the jury, the lord chancellor Alex Norris, who spoke at the bar conference, said: ’I can’t give comment, I’m afraid, without [the Ministry of Justice press office] clearing it.’

A Ministry of Justice spokesperson told the Gazette: ’We would carefully consider any proposal that we believe strengthens protections for victims.’ She said: ’Independent judges are already able to, and do, give directions to counter rape myths but we always want to keep looking at ways we can improve how the justice system treats victims and sexual violence.’

The government is already changing the law, in the Courts and Tribunals Bill, to stop “irrelevant evidence’ that relies on rape myths ’being weaponised against victims’, the spokesperson said.