Amendment urged

The Bar Council is urging peers to oppose a key provision of the Criminal Justice and Immigration Bill, which is currently being considered in the House of Lords. It wants the upper house to approve amendments to cl 55, which proposes to extend the powers of nonlegal CPS staff (designated case workers— DCWs) to conduct serious trials in magistrates’ courts. DCWs, the Bar says, need to be properly regulated and their remit should be restricted to summary-only, non-imprisonable offences. Bar Chairman Tim Dutton QC says: “Using non-legally qualified lay people to conduct prosecutions in trials which could end in imprisonment could place the public’s confidence in doubt, and result in longer trials, more appeals and cost the taxpayer more money.”