The lord chief justice emphasised the importance of trial by jury last week as the Court of Appeal overturned two High Court decisions that trials could proceed without a jury.

Sir Igor Judge said that judge-alone trials should only proceed ‘as a last resort’.

In J, S, M v R, Judge noted that two conditions must be met under the Criminal Justice Act 2003 before a juryless trial can be ordered: there must be a ‘real and present danger’ that jury tampering will take place; and the impact on the jury and cost of providing protection must be too high.

Judge ruled that, while the judge at Sheffield Crown Court had met the first condition – that there was a genuine risk of jurors being suborned – the impact and cost of protecting jurors for the two weeks that the trial was expected to last was not enough to fulfil the second condition.

He said: ‘The trial of a serious criminal offence without a jury remains and must remain the decision of last resort, only to be ordered when the court is sure (not that it entertains doubts, suspicions or reservations) that the statutory conditions are ­fulfilled.’

In a second appeal, Judge overturned a decision to allow a trial at Northampton Crown Court to be heard without a jury because of attempted jury tampering in an area where jurors and the public gathered to smoke. Judge said it would be ‘simple’ to prevent the threat.

Although the trials are ongoing, Judge took the unusual step of publishing anonymised, reportable copies of the judgments last week because of the important public interest principles at stake.

Since the introduction of the Criminal Justice Act 2003, which made provision for juryless trials to avoid jury tampering, only one serious criminal case has been heard without a jury. This resulted in John Twomey and three others being convicted in March of a £1.75m robbery at a Heathrow warehouse.