Judges should present a list of questions to jurors in criminal trials to guide them in reaching a verdict, a senior judge suggested last week.

Lord Justice Moses said the move, which was recommended in Lord Justice Auld’s 2001 review of the criminal courts, would reduce the number of appeals based on a trial judge’s summing up, and help juries break any deadlock between them by identifying the issues and evidence about which they need further assistance.

Auld proposed in 2001 that a trial judge should turn the factual issues debated in court into a list of questions which would be written down before speeches to the jury. He said the jury should have to give a public response to each question.

Moses said this system would not prevent jurors from giving a perverse verdict where they wanted to do so, for example where they wanted to acquit a defendant who had acted out of political beliefs.

The judge said that trial judges are currently ‘fearful’ that their summing up may lead to an appeal, resulting in ‘this endless exercise in composing a defensive summing up’.

He said summings up often take a full day of court time, with trials costing £4,300 a day. Conviction appeals cost £14,000 a day and frequently stem from the summing up, he said.

Moses said resolving the issues into a list of questions drafted by the judge with the aid of counsel on both sides, would ‘reduce radically’ appeals based on the summing up.