header-logo header-logo

Jury or judge—the choice is yours, under Leveson proposals

09 July 2025
Issue: 8124 / Categories: Legal News , Criminal , Procedure & practice
printer mail-detail
Defendants would be able to opt out of jury trials, under recommendations put forward by senior judge Sir Brian Leveson

The proposal is the most eye-catching of Sir Brian’s Independent Review of the Criminal Courts: Part 1, published this week—he points out that jury trials now take twice as long as in 2000. He also recommends more ‘out of court resolution’, investment in rehabilitation and drug and alcohol misuse programmes, and a 40% reduction in sentence if a guilty plea is entered at the first opportunity.

David Corker, consultant at Corker Binning, said: ‘The accused gains a speedy trial and a reasoned judgment at the end.

‘A solution to the travesty of swathes of accused waiting for years for their trial while held in prison is finally possible. Canada and most of Australia introduced this reform over a decade ago and a large proportion of defendants when given that choice have opted for a judge-alone.

‘Privately many defence lawyers in those jurisdictions believe that in complex or emotionally charged cases like sexual assault, their client is more likely to obtain a fairer trial.’

However, Lloyd Firth, partner at WilmerHale, said: ‘What seems odd… is that trial by jury appears to have been identified as a root cause of the horrendous backlog of cases in the criminal courts and of the problems affecting a number of high-profile fraud trials—when neither proposition is true.

‘Rather, the backlog reflects the systemic underfunding of our entire criminal justice system, which has declined by more than 22% in real terms since 2010. The biggest single issue affecting the progress and outcome of fraud trials in England is prosecution disclosure failures. Redrawing the boundaries of when a defendant is able to elect trial by jury is the answer to a different problem.’

Sir Brian also tackled the appeals system, contending the current process for appeals from the magistrates' courts to the Crown Court ‘is not proportionate in the burden it places on the courts, relative to the gravity of the offences involved,’ and should be ‘streamlined’. Moreover, ‘an automatic right to a full rehearing impacts adversely on victims and witnesses... and permits frivolous and unmeritorious attempts at a second identical run through of the evidence,’ he said.

He recommended the automatic right to appeal be replaced with a requirement for permission to appeal, with grounds to appeal similar to those available from the Crown Court to the Court of Appeal (Criminal Division).

He recommends the creation of a new division of the Crown Court, the Crown Court Bench Division, where a judge and two magistrates hear ‘either way’ offences (the defendant chooses between magistrate or Crown Court jury). Defendants would lose the right to a Crown Court trial where offences carry a maximum two years or less. Juries would also be dispensed with for serious and complex fraud cases, which would be trial by judge alone.

Sir Brian calculates that diverting cases to the Crown Court Bench Division or the magistrates’ courts would save about 9,000 Crown Court sitting days per year.

However, Mark Jones, partner at Payne Hicks Beach, said: ‘Removing the right to a jury trial is deeply concerning.

‘The principal reason for the current backlogs is a lack of funding and investment. That should therefore be a significant part of the solution, rather than eroding a defendant's right to a fair trial by losing the right to be judged by his peers.’
Issue: 8124 / Categories: Legal News , Criminal , Procedure & practice
printer mail-details

MOVERS & SHAKERS

Mourant—Stephen Alexander

Mourant—Stephen Alexander

Jersey litigation lead appointed to global STEP Council

mfg Solicitors—nine trainees

mfg Solicitors—nine trainees

Firm invests in future talent with new training cohort

360 Law Group—Anthony Gahan

360 Law Group—Anthony Gahan

Investment banking veteran appointed as chairman to drive global growth

NEWS
Charlie Mercer and Astrid Gillam of Stewarts crunch the numbers on civil fraud claims in the English courts, in this week's NLJ. New data shows civil fraud claims rising steadily since 2014, with the King’s Bench Division overtaking the Commercial Court as the forum of choice for lower-value disputes
Bea Rossetto of the National Pro Bono Centre makes the case for ‘General Practice Pro Bono’—using core legal skills to deliver life-changing support, without the need for niche expertise—in this week's NLJ
In this week's NLJ, Steven Ball of Red Lion Chambers unpacks how advances in forensic science finally unmasked Ryland Headley, jailed in 2025 for the 1967 rape and murder of 75-year-old Louisa Dunne. Preserved swabs and palm prints lay dormant for decades until DNA-17 profiling produced a billion-to-one match
The Supreme Court issued a landmark judgment in July that overturned the convictions of Tom Hayes and Carlo Palombo, once poster boys of the Libor and Euribor scandal. In NLJ this week, Neil Swift of Peters & Peters considers what the ruling means for financial law enforcement
Small law firms want to embrace technology but feel lost in a maze of jargon, costs and compliance fears, writes Aisling O’Connell of the Solicitors Regulation Authority in this week's NLJ
back-to-top-scroll