Right to jury trial faces axe as courts try to clear backlog

Plans for less serious cases to be heard by judge and magistrates to speed up delivery of justice for victims

- Rachel Sylvester Political Editor

Thousands of people will lose the right to a trial by jury under radical plans for a new intermediate court to deal with the record backlog of cases.

Some cases involving less serious crimes would be heard by a judge and two magistrates instead of a panel of 12 members of the public, in order to speed up the delivery of justice for victims, complainants and defendants.

The proposal will be one of the key recommendations of an independent review of the courts, chaired by retired judge Sir Brian Leveson. He told The Observer that radical reform was required to put the courts on to a sustainable footing.

The backlog is so acute that some trials are now being set for 2029. "There's no choice. We cannot carry on with the present system," he said. "Justice delayed is justice denied."

The government is expected to endorse the plan and introduce legislation later in the year.

Shabana Mahmood, the lord chancellor, supports the idea of an intermediate court for England and Wales. "The only question for us is what goes in there, rather than whether it happens," says a source at the Ministry of Justice. Keir Starmer, a former director of public prosecutions, is also in favour of the plan.

In January 2019, there were 33,000 cases outstanding in the crown courts in England and Wales. Now there are almost 80,000 and there has been an 11% rise over the last year. The backlog includes 3,808 rape and 12,532 sexual offence cases. Alex Chalk, the former Conservative lord chancellor, said that without a new intermediate court, the crisis in the criminal justice system was "irrecoverable".