Juries to be axed from fraud trials

Juries could be removed from complex fraud trials, under new proposals advanced by the Attorney General Lord Goldsmith.

The proposals, part of the 2003 Criminal Justice Act, would allow judges to make the sole decision in intricate fraud cases.

Prosecutors would be able to apply to a Crown Court judge to allow the case to be heard without a jury.

The announcement follows the collapse of the Jubilee Line extension fraud case, due to problems with jury members. The case, which had lasted two years and cost £60 million, was abandoned due to illness among the jury members – one had to be dismissed suffering from stress – while another claimed that they could not survive on the expenses provided for jury service.

Lord Goldsmith said that the proposed changes would only affect around 15 – 20 cases a year and stressed that the measures were not part of a “general assault” on trial by jury.

The Attorney General said that some trials were too lengthy, too expensive and too complicated and he said there was currently a “double standard” where convictions were gained in simple cases of petty fraud, while more complex cases had to be abandoned or never reached court in the first place. Lord Goldsmith said: “We can’t have a situation of easy-to-prosecute blue-collar crime and unprosecutable white-collar crime. It is important that people running fraud at a much higher level should be brought to justice as well.”

However, civil liberties campaigners have expressed concerns that the proposals could lead to juries being removed from other trials as well.

Shami Chakrabarti, director of civil rights group Liberty, said: “No-one should be under any illusions that this policy will stay restricted to serious fraud cases. Evidential complexity is an excuse that may be made with a whole host of trials. This patronising approach is particularly surprising from a government apparently so keen for greater community involvement in the criminal justice system.”

Liberal Democrat home affairs spokesperson Mark Oaten said: “Yet again Labour seem prepared to abandon the principle of fair trials and justice that have served this country well for decades. The trial by jury is at the heart of our judicial system. For complex trials like fraud it should be possible to create banks of jurors with the skills required to deal with these cases.”

The new proposals will only become law if they pass a vote in both the Commons and the Lords.

(KMcA/SP)