Issue 153  1st August 2020

Following rigorous health and safety assessments, five more crown courts are listed to resume trials. This will bring the total number of courts hearing jury trials to 62, out of a total of 77 courts open.

• Leicester Crown Court - 3 August 2020
• Coventry Crown Court - 3 August 2020
• Derby Crown Court - 3 August 2020
• Bournemouth Crown Court - 3 August 2020
• Gloucester Crown Court - 3 August 2020

‘Covid-19 operating hours’ are to be piloted in Liverpool as part of HM Courts & Tribunals Service’s coronavirus recovery plan, the Criminal Bar Association has revealed. Starting on 17 August for at least a month, one of the courtrooms at Liverpool Crown Court will hear cases based on a different listing pattern. The court will have separate lists for the morning and afternoon. The morning list will operate from 9am to 1pm. Between 1pm and 2pm the courtroom is cleared and cleaned. The afternoon list will operate from 2pm to 6pm...

Issuing guidance on the pilot, HHJ Andrew Menary QC, Liverpool Crown Court's resident judge, says the shortest and most straightforward cases will be suitable for the shift courts. The trial should ideally involve a single defendant and have an estimated hearing length of no more than two-three days. Custody and bail cases can be listed in the morning court. Only bail cases will be listed in the afternoon court.

This is our strategy on rape and serious sexual offences (RASSO) for the next five years. The strategy is underpinned by a commitment to ensuring the right person is prosecuted for the right offence. It represents a clear articulation of the role that the CPS can play in driving a step change for the criminal justice system as a whole - a turning point in how we collectively approach our work...

The CPS shares the deep public concern that while the number of RASSO reports to the police have increased in recent years, the number of cases going to court has fallen. Working with partners across the criminal justice system and with victims’ groups to understand why this is happening, and finding the best way forward, is urgent and necessary. Our strategy reflects the CPS’s commitment to this endeavour and is developed within the context of our overall five year strategy: CPS 2025. It provides a five-year vision, and every year significant steps towards achieving these aims will be included in our business plans. We will assess the impact from the delivery of these activities through a range of success measures which focus on outcomes and the quality of the service provided by the CPS.

The delivery of criminal justice has proved difficult during the past four months and will do so for the foreseeable future. That said, the Magistrates’ Courts have continued to operate throughout and are fast returning towards pre-Covid volumes of work. I am heartened by the enthusiasm of lay magistrates not only to get back to normal sitting but to support additional hearings to enable the backlog to be cleared. Talk of the backlog taking years to clear is wide of the mark. The omens are good for a return to relative normality within months.

Jury trials have presented the most testing difficulties. The other work of the Crown Court accelerated during lock-down but it was not possible for some weeks to start new jury trials. At the beginning of April, we established a judge-led group to work out plans to enable them to get going again, taking account of public health advice with necessary logistical adjustments. They commenced again in the second week of May. We now have jury trials running in most of our Crown Court buildings and the number of trials is increasing rapidly. I do not underestimate the difficulty in putting in place systems which will enable trials to be conducted in sufficient numbers not only to cope with the work flowing into the Crown Court but also to erode the accumulated backlog. Policy makers and Parliament may yet have to consider radical but temporary measures to aid that process...

The difficulties caused by coronavirus will be with us for many more months, if not longer, and so the expanded use of technology will be necessary. There will be a constant evaluation of the experience in all jurisdictions so that proven advantages can be baked into practice. Where that experience shows that remote attendance is not in the interests of justice that lesson, too, will be learned. But as a judge said to me last week, the idea that lawyers will be required to travel for an hour or two, wait around and then deploy arguments for half an hour before travelling back, has now gone.

The Commons Justice Committee has published a report on the significant crisis in delays to court cases – and therefore justice - caused by the Covid-19 pandemic. The report is Coronavirus (Covid-19): The impact on courts. The Committee has also announced an inquiry into how these delays could be addressed. It will review the practical experience of delays in the courts for lawyers, witnesses, victims and defendants. It will investigate whether the increase of 4,500 court sitting days will be sufficient to clear the backlog of cases and what long term solutions to the delays, including digital hearings, may be possible.

The deadline for written submissions is 7 September. The first oral evidence session is expected to be in late September.

Too many schools, police forces, councils and courts are hiding behind “a veil of complexity” to excuse their failure to reduce the disproportionate number of black and minority ethnic children in the criminal justice system, according to the first black chair of the Youth Justice Board (YJB) in England and Wales. Keith Fraser, who worked for the Metropolitan police and West Midlands force for 32 years, rising to superintendent, said tackling this disproportionality would be one of his top priorities.