Report comment

Please fill in the form to report an unsuitable comment. Please state which comment is of concern and why. It will be sent to our moderator for review.

Comment

Now here's a funny thing. In, I think, 1977 assault-PC was downgraded from either-way to summary only and the civil liberties lobby objected precisely because there would be no right to a trial by jury.

By including police officers as emergency workers the present government - whom nobody would accuse of being civil libertarians - has reversed that decision. Last week I was present in a magistrates' court - in the chair - when a man accused of what sounded like a very ordinary case of assault on an officer, the sort we regularly deal with, elected trial by jury. Nice one, Sajid. I think.

Your details

Cancel