Independent Review of the Criminal Courts
Yesterday (9 July 2025) Sir Brian Leveson published part 1 of his independent review of the criminal courts. With the Crown Court backlog at 76,957 on 31 March this year, the Government commissioned Sir Brian’s review to set out “Longer-term options for criminal court reform, with the aim of reducing demand on the Crown Court by retaining more cases in the lower courts”. The second part of the review is due to be published this autumn and will examine how legal process “through charge to conviction/acquittal” could be improved to maximise efficiency.
Controversial
This review was always going to be controversial as its remit was to reduce the number of cases going to Crown Court which could only be done by reducing access to trial by jury. Sir Brian is of course fully aware of this and is reported to have said he had made recommendations that he did not “rejoice” in.
There are 45 recommendations in the 388 page report and I summarise the principle ones below which follow the legal process starting with arrest.
Sir Brian recommends increased use of Out of Court Resolutions (OOCRs) which “represent a flexible, cost-effective and alternative initiative to court proceedings in relation to low-level offences allowing the police to devote time to more serious offending”.
He also makes recommendations to speed up decision-making around charging. He wants to stop the practice of releasing suspects under investigation for long periods of time, saying that suspects should only be released on bail to ensure that the investigation process takes place as quickly as possible.
Perhaps Sir Brian’s most significant recommendation is that the right to jury trial is removed for all offences with a maximum sentence length of less than or equal to two years. He recommends the introduction of one safeguard to this by proposing that “trial and sentencing proceedings in the magistrates’ court be audio recorded and, if necessary for the purpose of appeals, appropriate parts transcribed”.
In another recommendation to try to tackle court backlogs, the review recommends that “the maximum reduction for entering a guilty plea be increased to 40% if the plea is made (or indicated) at the first available opportunity”. Interestingly, he also recommends that this measure applies to magistrates’ courts.
Another very substantial recommendation is the creation of a new division of the crown court in which a judge and two magistrates hear “either way” offences – those in which the defendant can currently choose to be heard by either a magistrate or a jury in the crown court. This will be known as a “bench trial” (as opposed to trial by jury) and Sir Brian recommends that there should “be a presumption of a bench trial for any case which carries a prospective sentence of three years or less”.
Sir Brian acknowledges that even if all his recommendations are fully implemented, back logs are likely to take many years to shift and therefore recommends that Crown Courts (including the new Bench Division) should be allocated 130,000 sitting days per year (up from the current 110,000).
He also recommends that defendants should be allowed to choose to be tried by a judge alone and that serious and complex fraud cases should be tried by judge alone.
Conclusions
Legal commentators have protested about the loss of access to jury trial and many organisations have raised concerns that trial without jury will exacerbate existing racial disparity within the criminal justice system. Sir Brian addresses this latter issue in the review but rather dodges it, saying that most of the evidence is about sentencing decisions and recommending (rather weakly) that any changes should be subject to “regular monitoring”.
The Lord Chancellor (and Justice Secretary) Shabana Mahmood has said merely that she will consider the recommendations with a view to legislating in the Autumn. With the sentencing review also likely to generate floods of new legislation I can’t see many MoJ civil servants getting much of a summer holiday.
Thanks to Andy Aitchison for kind permission to use the header image in this post. You can see Andy’s work here
