Court Reporter Comment: The problem is not trial by jury, the backlog can only by solved by paying for justice which cannot be done on the cheap

As Star court reporter plans to cut trial by juries sends shivers down my spine. Being judged by your peers in a cornerstone of our democracy. 

Scrapping so many trial by juries to save cash is beyond a knee-jerk reaction it is bodypoppingly bad. 

It is like if another bad-decision making organisation, FIFA decided to overhaul football because the under-20 market do not have the attention span to watch 90 minute games and their bright idea was to remove the football, or the goalposts. Or something else which the entire world would mock and deride.

Trial by jury has been a lynchpin of our country's reputation as being governed by the rule of law for centuries. There are countries across the world which base their legal system on ours, which is one of the few positive legacies of Empire. 

What will they think? This decision to scrap juries in so many trials could not just result in the 70 million UK residents living a more precarious life but hundreds of millions of residents if those Commonwealth countries follow suit.

Altering the entire way justice is delivered in this country because previous administrations criminal underfunding of all parts of our justice system - the Police, Crown Prosecution Service, the Prison Service, the Probation Service and the Courts Service, is shockingly bad politically, ethically and historically. 

Labour have been in power for a year and if this is the best solution then the patients have taken over the underfunded asylum. 

There is a very simple solution, if you want a working justice system - pay for it.

Labour have previous when it comes to shafting people when it comes to the justice system. When (former lawyer) Tony Blair walked into Downing Street it was not long before he slashed legal aid. In 1986 79 per cent of people qualified for legal aid, by 2007 only 27 per cent of the population could get legal aid, and claimants in civil cases could no longer get legal aid. Even medical negligence cases could not be covered by legal aid. Now, if your a working person and you find yourself being prosecuted, say goodbye to your savings. 

Only the destitute qualify for legal aid, not the normal person, which what it was designed for. And if your case is going to take four years to get to court then your not going to keep a lawyer on a retainer are you?

This is why more and more people are defending themselves. I have seen people who are too stupid to serve on a jury let alone represent themselves. As the old adage goes, a man who represents himself has a fool for a client.

Again, the backlog is also caused because there is not enough barristers because there is not enough money to pay them. So again it comes down to money,

And, quell surprise. It turns out, according to the outgoing chairman of the Office For Budget Responsibility the coffers are not empty. There is money in the UKitty. But, we all know, just as war is the perfect excuse to remove our freedoms, being skint is the perfect excuse to cut services, and anything else the Government provides. 

On Monday as the bloke who let slip there is cash behind the sofa was planning his new garden feature, the (former lawyer) Prime Minister Keir Starmer was on his feet at the Guildhall extolling the virtues of China. 

And he might be visiting the Communist state in the New Year, which will be handy because he can get tips how their none-jury Justice system works. He could even pop into Hong Kong and ask about last year's 47 people jailed by judges. Or ask about UK citizen and media man Jimmy Lai who is dying in a Hong Kong cell after being found guilty of treason by a judge.

During the Parliamentary debate, the Justice Secretary would respond to any valid argument with a guilt trip about "the victims".

Well, what do the victims feel about their attacker or abuser walking out of court because there are no places in jail for them? How is scrapping so many trial by juries going to help that massive problem.

Regularly I watch suspended sentences being given to the guilty which I never thought I would see. People who drive whilst disqualified used to go to jail, I've seen disqualified drivers who have led police cars on chases through the Black Country leave court to sleep in their own bed the night of their sentencing, several times in the last year.

As soon as you hear the judge say "and the case of Muhammed..." that is the legalese for the jails are too full to add this defendant to the prison van at the end of the day. As for paedophiles, I cannot remember the last time i saw someone whose hard drive is full of images of children get sent down. Or a wrong-un who has tried to entice a child into bed, only to find out it is a police officer on the other end of the Snapchat. They always get suspended sentences. 

Drug dealers, drug dealers with knives, people with knives high on drugs. People guilty of ABH, GBH, affray, animal Cruelty, trafficking animals, kicking animals across factory floors, out of windows, through windows and shooting them with arrows and bows. they all wander out of court to God knows where, to do God know's what. 

Women-beaters and sexual abusers of women, they get avoid prison too, when their victims have done the hardest thing possible, give evidence, and watching their tormentors, and their friends watching their friend's tormentors walk free means they must think why bother? The Justice Secretary's plans will not make any difference to these cases.

As for punching, kicking or spitting on a police officer, fireman or ambulance worker, they would need to build another wing at Featherstone to house all the people who are walking the streets after attacking those men and women who start their day trying to keep the rest of us safe.

Again, what does that come down to? Money. Build more prisons. 

And the simple headline is jury trials "for sentences under three years' - well justice is messy, a defendant is rarely charged with one crime. One night alone can create several charges, are these jury cases for sentences under three years for one offence, what about if three offences carrying two year sentences are being deliberated?

The Police, Probation Service, Youth Services, Social Workers, Court Office Staff, Ushers, Clerks, Mental Health Nurses, Advocates and any other part of the justice system you can think of are working on what would be classed as a skeleton staff when I started in journalism 25 years ago.

Surely Labour are traditionally voted into reverse the cuts of Conservative administrations not use the bare hones they have left us after ten years of austerity as an excuse to push through a policy even Liz Truss in a fever dream would not try and get away with.

There is no doubt our system is broken.

If you plead not guilty at Wolverhampton Crown Court today, your case will be not heard until 2029. Lets says you are accused of sexually abusing a child.

The accused, who is innocent until proven guilty and therefore innocent for the next four years. On conditional bail he will not be able to go on holiday without the approval of a judge. As for applying for a job. Try explaining why your not a raper of children at a job interview.

And what about the alleged victim? Four years is an unimaginable time in a child's life, almost a third of the time she has been on the planet.

Those crucial years in which a child's personality is formed will be marred by police interviews, court dates and video interrogation for evidence for the trial. All whilst knowing her alleged rapist is walking around free to attack her or another child.

As his trial is four years away he cannot be remanded in custody as he will be behind bars longer than he would serve if found guilty.

And even if the judge wanted to remand him there are is no room in the prison system. Due to a lack of funding during a decade of Conservative administrations those incarcerated are at His Majesty's Displeasure

As for those involved in the case, police officers could change jobs, retire or drop dead. The victim will have to learn to trust someone else when another cop is assigned to the case. Prosecutors could get promoted, and the merry-go round starts again with the taxpayer footing the bill for the man hours expended getting acquainted with the case, which goes for every public servant involved in the case.

Justice delayed, is no justice at all.

But of all the problems in the criminal justice system, trial by jury is not one of them. 

Unglamorous reforms are needed not big ticket policies which were not mentioned in the manifesto. Cutting down the number of stage dates before a trial might help. And better co-operation between the Crown Prosecution Service and the Police Service would help. 

Every court reporter in the land groans when they see a CCTV and mobile phone site analysis expert on the witness stand. They can take weeks of trial time up, and juries must feel the same. A booklet with nearly 1,000 pages can be produced for the jury and the expert on the stand will go through it page by page. 

Take a murder case where the gunman drove down the Birmingham New Road, the jury do not need to be shown every camera angle of the alleged killer's car from each chicken shop camera between Burnt Tree Island and Tipton. Give juries the benefit of the doubt they understand the car travelled between A and B without changing occupants. You can see juries losing the will to live, and when it comes to the good stuff they are alert and taking it all in. Like watching the 20 different Ring Door Bell camera shots of the actual murder.  

Juries are important because they often can make morally right decisions which are legally wrong. They can highlight bad laws. Whereas a judge will make a decision based solely on the law, whether it is good or bad. And we do seem to create a lot of bad laws, don't we?

More juries began finding mostly young people not guilty when charged with murder through joint enterprise, because they might have been hundreds of metres away from the crime. That was because it was unfair for them to be guilty of murder. Perhaps they should have been tried for manslaughter instead? Asking someone to send a teenager away for thirty years is a big ask, especially when the juror does not believe the law they are following is correct or fair. 

So a victim's family might see someone involved in their loved one's death walk free because they were charged with murder and not a lesser charge they would have certainly being found guilty of.

For me, a jury can never be wrong, what will be wrong is what is presented to them, and how it is presented. 

Juries can also deliver morally right verdicts which are legally wrong. The Bristol jurors who cleared those who pushed the metal slave trader into the dock were not following the letter of the law, whether you agreed with them or not. 

If clearing the backlog was the problem why is David Lammy permanently axing juries for trials with cases under three years? 

Why not suspend them if they are such a problem?

Because, once any government scraps something they never bring it back. 

The backlog will continue, so in a year or two time expect plans to cut juries for cases up to four years. 

And so on.