Overview
- The government announced on Sunday that it has dropped plans to broadly replace Crown Court juries with judge-alone trials and will keep juries for most offences.
- A narrow exception will remain for technical, long-running fraud and some financial cases so a single judge can hear trials that would otherwise last months.
- Ministers will put the changes into the Courts and Tribunals Bill when it returns to Parliament on 13 October and will remove defendants’ automatic right to elect a Crown Court jury for certain either-way offences.
- The package also raises magistrates’ sentencing powers and gives courts final say on where some cases are heard, a move legal groups say risks overloading already strained magistrates’ courts.
- The U-turn followed sustained opposition from barristers, MPs and campaigners and comes as the Ministry of Justice reports a Crown Court backlog near 81,000 cases, prompting pledges of investment in technology and listing reforms to speed up trials.