{"id":6540,"date":"2025-07-14T11:07:32","date_gmt":"2025-07-14T11:07:32","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.prisonersadvice.org.uk\/?p=6540"},"modified":"2025-07-14T11:07:32","modified_gmt":"2025-07-14T11:07:32","slug":"independent-review-of-the-criminal-courts-published","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/prisonersadvice.org.uk\/wordpress\/2025\/07\/14\/independent-review-of-the-criminal-courts-published\/","title":{"rendered":"INDEPENDENT REVIEW OF THE CRIMINAL COURTS PUBLISHED\u00a0"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Sir Brian Leveson has now published the first part o<a rel=\"noreferrer noopener\" target=\"_blank\" href=\"https:\/\/assets.publishing.service.gov.uk\/media\/686be85d81dd8f70f5de3c1f\/35.49_MOJ_Ind_Review_Criminal_Courts_v8b_FINAL_WEB.pdf?utm_source=substack&amp;utm_medium=email\">f his independent review of the criminal courts<\/a>, examining &#8216;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.&#8217;<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">The report makes 45 recommendations to tackle the current crown court backlog of circa. 73,000 cases.&nbsp;<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Perhaps the most significant recommendation is that the right to jury trial is removed for all offences with a maximum sentence length of less than &#8211; or equal to &#8211; two years.&nbsp;<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Other recommendations include:&nbsp;<\/p>\n\n\n\n<ul class=\"wp-block-list\">\n<li>increased use of Out of Court Resolutions, which &#8216;represent a flexible, cost-effective and alternative initiative to court proceedings for low-level offences&#8217;<\/li>\n\n\n\n<li>quicker decision-making around charging, reducing the number of suspects released under investigation for long periods of time<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">The review, however, acknowledges that even if all recommendations are fully implemented, backlogs are likely to take many years to shift.&nbsp;<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">For further details,<a rel=\"noreferrer noopener\" target=\"_blank\" href=\"https:\/\/www.russellwebster.com\/right-to-jury-trials-restricted\/\">&nbsp;click here.<\/a><a rel=\"noreferrer noopener\" target=\"_blank\" href=\"https:\/\/www.russellwebster.com\/right-to-jury-trials-restricted\/\">&nbsp;<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Sir Brian Leveson has now published the first part of his independent review of the criminal courts, examining &#8216;longer-term options [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"om_disable_all_campaigns":false,"_uag_custom_page_level_css":"","_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"_uf_show_specific_survey":0,"_uf_disable_surveys":false,"site-sidebar-layout":"default","site-content-layout":"","ast-site-content-layout":"default","site-content-style":"default","site-sidebar-style":"default","ast-global-header-display":"","ast-banner-title-visibility":"","ast-main-header-display":"","ast-hfb-above-header-display":"","ast-hfb-below-header-display":"","ast-hfb-mobile-header-display":"","site-post-title":"","ast-breadcrumbs-content":"","ast-featured-img":"","footer-sml-layout":"","ast-disable-related-posts":"","theme-transparent-header-meta":"","adv-header-id-meta":"","stick-header-meta":"","header-above-stick-meta":"","header-main-stick-meta":"","header-below-stick-meta":"","astra-migrate-meta-layouts":"default","ast-page-background-enabled":"default","ast-page-background-meta":{"desktop":{"background-color":"var(--ast-global-color-5)","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""},"tablet":{"background-color":"","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""},"mobile":{"background-color":"","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""}},"ast-content-background-meta":{"desktop":{"background-color":"var(--ast-global-color-4)","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""},"tablet":{"background-color":"var(--ast-global-color-4)","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""},"mobile":{"background-color":"var(--ast-global-color-4)","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""}},"footnotes":""},"categories":[8],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-6540","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-news"],"aioseo_notices":[],"uagb_featured_image_src":{"full":false,"thumbnail":false,"medium":false,"medium_large":false,"large":false,"1536x1536":false,"2048x2048":false},"uagb_author_info":{"display_name":"Ben","author_link":"https:\/\/prisonersadvice.org.uk\/wordpress\/author\/ben\/"},"uagb_comment_info":0,"uagb_excerpt":"Sir Brian Leveson has now published the first part of his independent review of the criminal courts, examining &#8216;longer-term options [&hellip;]","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/prisonersadvice.org.uk\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6540","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/prisonersadvice.org.uk\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/prisonersadvice.org.uk\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/prisonersadvice.org.uk\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/prisonersadvice.org.uk\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=6540"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/prisonersadvice.org.uk\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6540\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/prisonersadvice.org.uk\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=6540"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/prisonersadvice.org.uk\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=6540"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/prisonersadvice.org.uk\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=6540"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}