Justice secretary David Lammy has been criticised for suggesting someone accused of stealing an iPhone from Currys should not have the right to elect trial by jury.
Lammy relied on the example of iPhone theft in an interview with BBC News yesterday ahead of his announcement that a quarter of jury trials would be axed to cut the Crown court backlog.
'If you steal an iPhone this afternoon in Currys, should you be able to opt to have a jury? The trial takes two days. Inevitably that will cause further delays for more serious and egregious comes like rape and murder,’ the deputy prime minister told BBC News.
However, Jason Lartey, president of the London Criminal Courts Solicitors’ Association, said Lammy’s example illustrated why the right to a jury trial must not be diluted. Lartey said: ‘His comments make light of what can be an offence with very serious consequences for all. The wording itself assumes guilt, and that is the danger.
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‘Anyone can be wrongly or inadvertently accused of theft. Allegations of dishonesty are not trivial. A conviction for “just stealing an iPhone” can destroy a person’s career, reputation and livelihood. To suggest that such cases are too minor for a jury fundamentally misunderstands the potential weight of these offences.
‘If Mr Lammy himself had a conviction for stealing an iPhone from Currys, he would not be permitted to hold the office he holds today. That fact alone demonstrates why offences of so-called “low-level dishonesty” cannot be dismissed as insignificant or unworthy of a jury’s scrutiny.’
Lartey added that he and his colleagues were shocked that the Ministry of Justice intends to push through such significant reforms without talking to frontline practitioners, urging Lammy to meet them to discuss the proposals.
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