Anger as crime plans sweep away 'safeguards'

The biggest overhaul of the criminal justice system in modern times formed the centrepiece of yesterday's Queen's Speech.

The Government believes the changes – which include dropping the double jeopardy rule and reducing the right to trial by jury – will re-weight the scales of justice and redress an imbalance against victims.

Police officers welcomed the reforms. Rod Dalley, vice-chairman of the Police Federation, said: "The pendulum has swung too far in favour of defendants, with the odds heavily stacked against victims."

John Burbeck, of the Association of Chief Police Officers, suggested that the changes would help restore public confidence in the courts.

Mr Burbeck, who accepted that the police had a "responsibility to improve the quality of our investigations", said that "victims and witnesses ... too often in the past have felt badly let down by the system".

But the changes, which overturn some principles enshrined in English law since Magna Carta, set ministers on a collision course with the legal profession and criminal justice organisations.

The crime reduction charity Nacro warned that the Government's plans were a "recipe for injustice". Paul Cavadino, the chief executive, said: "It's a fundamental principle of our criminal justice system that a suspect is tried on the basis of evidence before the court, not on the basis of what they have done in the past."

Some observers believe that many of the measures designed to improve the efficiency of the courts system are linked less to the rights of victims than to meeting the Government's numerical targets on tackling crime.

The editor of the Prisons Handbook and founder of the ex-offenders' charity Unlock, Mark Leech, described the reforms as "dangerous and flawed," adding: "While it is true the system doesn't do enough to help victims of crime, you do not improve their lot by moving the legal goalposts and making convictions easier to obtain."

The Conservative home affairs spokesman, Oliver Letwin, sided with liberal critics, saying "we have fundamental concerns about proposals on trial by jury, double jeopardy and the provision of information about previous convictions".

Describing the package as "an empty gesture", Mr Letwin pointed out that Labour had introduced 12 criminal justice acts since coming to power in 1997 and claimed "we still have a criminal justice system in a state of disarray".

The Liberal Democrat home affairs spokesman, Simon Hughes, said that increasing rights of victims and decreasing rights of defendants were "not two sides of the same coin". He said: "Victims do need more support, but this does not mean we raise chances of the innocent going to prison."

The reforms include major changes to the structure of the courts system. Crown Courts and magistrates' courts will work more closely together, and the jury system will be changed to prevent middle-class jurors exempting themselves from service.

Other measures will target the threat of dangerous offenders. The courts will be given new powers to hand down indeterminate sentences for people deemed to be of continuing risk to the public. Child sex offenders will face prosecution for "grooming victims".

And the scourge of low-level nuisance crime will be addressed with fixed-penalties for anti-social behaviour including graffiti-writing, dumping rubbish and noise pollution.

Defendant's rights

A raft of measures aimed at curbing the right to jury trial has drawn the most fire from the civil rights lobby and the legal profession. Similar proposals contained in the three ill-fated Mode of Trial Bills ended in a bloody nose for the Government when two of the bills were defeated in the House of Lords and the third was strangled at birth. Opponents of these measures said that the change would remove the right to jury trial for 18,000 defendants every year.

This time ministers are embarking on a more stealthy three-pronged attack on jury trial which critics say will have the same impact.

Under yesterday's proposals, judges will be given new powers to sit alone in "serious and complex fraud" cases or when they believe jurors are at risk of being nobbled. Defendants will also be given the right to elect judge-only trials.

Further controversial changes include telling juries of a defendant's previous convictions and abolishing the double jeopardy rule, which protects defendants being tried twice for the same offence, in very serious cases.

The Bar Council described the changes as a "dark day for the justice system." Liberty, the civil rights group, said they represented an "affront to justice" while the Law Society of England and Wales said the changes will be unworkable. Matthias Kelly QC, chairman of the Bar, predicted ministers would have a "battle royal" in Parliament over their proposals. He added: "The Government is returning yet again to try to erode the right to trial by jury, when it has already been defeated time and time again on the issue." He said if these measures became law it would lead to more miscarriages of justice in which prosecution would return to the "round up the usual suspects" culture.

Mark Littlewood, Liberty's campaigns director, warned that making trials less fair would not cut crime rates but would send more innocent people to prison. "The Government wants to shortcut justice, because it's cheap and it gets good headlines. But it's wrong and it won't solve the problem," he said yesterday.

But not all the reforms are opposed. Lawyers and civil liberty groups welcome moves to end jury service opt-out for the professional and middle classes.

Sentencing

The Government claims its changes will "put the sense back into sentencing" by targeting dangerous offenders and discouraging the use of short-term custody.

Critics fear the changes will lead to overcrowding in jails.

The sentencing powers of magistrates will be doubled to allow them to hand down jail terms of up to a year.

Sexual or violent offenders deemed to be dangerous will face "indeterminate sentences" that will prevent their release until they are considered "manageable in the community". Child sex offenders will face new charges for "grooming" victims on internet chat sites or offering them presents or inviting the children to their homes.

The incest laws are to be changed to allow step parents, foster carers, aunts and uncles to be charged with a new offence of familial sex abuse.

Phillip Noyes, director of policy at the NSPCC, backed what he described as "the biggest shake-up of the sex laws this century".

He said: "It means child sex abusers will face the full force of the law."

Harry Fletcher, of probation union Napo, said that the Government's proposed changes would collectively have a damaging impact on conditions in jails. He said: "The new measures will put an extra 6,000 to 10,000 people in prison after they have been operating for a full year at a time when the jails are already far above safe levels." The prison population stands at nearly 73,000, having increased from 66,000 in June 2001, and jail staff warn of growing signs of unrest among inmates.

The Government hopes to make community-based court punishments more attractive and is introducing half-way house schemes such as weekend jail and Custody Plus, which combines a prison term with a period under intensive probation supervision.

But Mr Fletcher said Government officials had admitted there was no public money to fund the introduction of such schemes.

Court structure

A separate Courts Bill will reflect the Prime Minster's desire to reform the 19th century criminal justice system so that the courts are modernised to try 21st century crime.

The proposed changes will bring together magistrates' courts and Crown Courts under one administration so that they will work more effectively together. But there is no plan for a new intermediate court, favoured by Lord Justice Auld, whose review of the criminal courts formed the blueprint of many of yesterday's changes.

After a number of violent attacks on judges, ministers announced new measures to tighten up court security. There was also greater provision for magistrates' court staff to tackle the growing problem of fines collection. And in an overdue reform, senior women judges who have had to use men's titles are to be referred to in their feminine form..