Defendants of 'good character' will be denied jury trial, MPs told

Defendants with previous convictions would get a jury trial whereas defendants of good character would not - and the continued near-absence of black judges should be a ‘red flag’ - MPs scrutinising the Courts and Tribunals Bill heard yesterday.

The House of Commons justice select committee held its first evidence session on the bill, which will axe jury trials for all but the most serious offences.

Asked what information will be presented to the court to determine whether a case is heard by a judge or jury, Tom Guest, deputy director of legal policy at the Crown Prosecution Service, said prosecutors would set out the facts of the case, previous convictions and sentencing guidelines.

However, Richard Atkinson, former Law Society president, said: ‘If you are a heavily convicted person, you’re likely to get a longer sentence and will get a jury trial. If you’re a person of good character with the same set of facts, you may find yourself not facing a sentence as long and you will not get a jury trial. The loss of character, the impact on your employment and ability to hold yourself high in your local community is really important, but that’s not going to be a factor in determining allocation.

'Someone who's saying "I didnt' do it, I've never done anything wrong in my life" will be told "judge only". Someone who has a string of previous convictions and told "if you did do this you're going to prison for a long time" will get a jury. That can't be a logical outcome when looking at justice issues.'

Keir Monteith KC, who co-authored a report entitled Racial Bias and the Bench, told MPs he was ‘shocked’ to read the Leveson review - which inspired the bill - say there was no evidence that professional judges alone making decisions in criminal cases produced decisions with disproportionate outcomes.

Monteith pointed to evidence that said otherwise – including justice secretary David Lammy’s 2017 race review. ‘There’s something wrong with the justice system if for decades it hasn’t increased the percentage of black judges,’ he added.

MPs heard that in 2023, Lammy backed calls for judges to receive compulsory anti-racist and racial bias training. Monteith said this particular training has never been delivered and judges have received inclusion training. 'I don’t know what inclusion training is other than it’s not anti-racist and it doesn’t deal with racial bias. It’s one of those words which they use instead of speaking the truth,' he added.