Retired High Court Judge Sir Brian Leveson KC has been appointed by the Government to undertake a "once in a generation" review of the criminal court system in England and Wales.
Rumours about this first emerged about a month ago, with the suggestion that the review will consider the establishment of some sort of intermediate court with maximum sentencing powers of 2 years. The court would consist of a Crown Court Judge, be that a Circuit Judge or Recorder, sitting with two Justices of the Peace.
This is the same format as when the Crown Court hears appeals from the Magistrates' Court. It would work in very much the same manner, with the professionally-qualified judge advising on points of law and all three having an equal say on the findings of fact and decision making.
The reason such a court might be needed is that the current backlog of Crown Court trials stands at just over 73,000, with there being no obvious signs of abatement on the horizon. Assuming a trial lasts for one week (which it doesn't) and every Crown Court courtroom in England and Wales was used to handle trials (which it isn't), it would take more than three-and-a-half years to clear that number of cases.
Of course in reality it would take far longer than three-and-a-half years because new trials would still be listed and probably only half the available courtrooms are actually dealing with trials at any given time. It's a right pickle, make no mistake. The oft-used maxim of "justice delayed is justice denied" has never been more appropriate.
My personal view is that we should be squeezing as much as we can out of the current system, before radically overhauling the rights of people appearing before the court.
According to Daniel Cloake's very useful @Court_Stats X account, today there are only 415/516 Crown Court courtrooms being used. That is 101 extra courtrooms that could be used to deal with short trials, those expected to last less than a week, that could be presided over by Judges sitting in retirement or Recorders if necessary.
As things currently stand it is very unusual for the Crown Court to sit beyond 4 pm, whereas the Magistrates' Court often sits well beyond that. A lot of extra non-trial work could be achieved by sitting until 5 pm, which would also help free up capacity for trials.
Most Crown Court venues across the land have at least one or two courtrooms dedicated to appeals from the Magistrates' Court every week. Again, those could be freed up for trials very easily. Instead of the Magistrates going to the Crown Court, the Crown Court would go to the Magistrates.
Every Magistrates' Court within walking distance of its local Crown Court would play host to the appeal hearings. A Recorder or Judge sitting in retirement would turn up and deal with the appeals in a Magistrates' Court courtroom. A Court Associate would have the role of clerking. This would be ideal in places like Bristol, Preston, Manchester and Teesside where the Crown and Magistrates' Court buildings are only a stone's throw apart.
I'd also be looking very carefully at which either way offences are sent to the Crown Court for trial or sentencing. Shop theft, in particular, is a bit of a bugbear of mine. Shop theft is the bread and butter of the Magistrates' Court, with hundreds of cases listed on a daily basis. In theory low value (<£200) shop theft is a summary offence (s22A of the Magistrates' Court Act 1980), but an adult defendant can still indicate that they would like the matter dealt with by way of a Crown Court trial (try to get your head around that one).
You could have the preposterous situation where a defendant elects a Crown Court trial when they are accused of stealing a packet of chewing gum. In reality it tends not to be as ridiculous as that, but even so you could have a defendant accused of a £500 Tesco trolley dash electing a Crown Court trial. In my view, it would be better to amend the legislation so that any offence of shop theft below £1,000 was summary only full stop.
Anyway, that's enough of my thoughts on the matter. In summary - no new intermediate court until they have improved the efficiency and maxed out the capacity of what we already have.
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