RESEARCH: nine courts without large video screens a year after link made to conviction rates


Conviction rates in cases with vulnerable witnesses could be lower than they should be in England and Wales because of a failure to equip Crown Courts with large video screens long after Whitehall knew they were required.



Using large screens, rather than small video units, to allow people to appear remotely in court, seems to produce vastly better conviction rates, according to research by Henry Globe, the Recorder of Liverpool. But more than a year after he finished the research and 18 months since the Gazette revealed its early findings (see [2005] Gazette, 8 December, 1), nine Crown Court centres in England and Wales still lack any large screens and only around one in seven of the 356 magistrates' courts possess them, the Gazette has learned.



Crown Courts still without large video screens in any courtroom are processing hundreds of sexual offence and violence against the person cases, based on the most recent annual report figures. But though Whitehall admits it is moving ahead with various video-conferencing programmes in part based on this research, and the Courts Service said it intends for every court to have them, it has yet to buy every Crown Court courtroom a big screen.



Following an application under the Freedom of Information Act for the Globe research, the Courts Service admitted it has only equipped 68 out of 77 Crown Courts and 53 out of 356 magistrates' courts with 'videolinks systems that include plasma screens', a spokesman said. However, this does not mean each Crown Court courtroom in areas listed as having them has a large screen.



A spokesman said it intended to replace equipment at the remaining Crown Courts by next year, typically including either a plasma screen or large LCD screen.



Rodney Warren, director of the Criminal Law Solicitors Association, said courts may now have to stop use of videolink in 'special measures' cases if the lack of a big screen means justice may not be served.



'If juries find the evidence given by the bigger screen easier to deal with, there are dangers in allowing people to present on small screens,' he said. 'If [it is known] justice may not be served so well, the answer is that the courts should be alert to the consequences.'



The nine Crown courts still without large screens are Aylesbury, Burnley, Chichester, Doncaster, Dorchester, Exeter, Lincoln, Merthyr Tydfil, Newport (Isle of Wight), Salisbury, Shrewsbury, Warwick, Worcester and York. Worcester Crown Court, for example, disposed of 105 sexual offences and 262 violence cases in 2005-6.



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Rupert White