Jury trial consultation

The Ministry of Justice is consulting on two possible changes to jury trials, to reduce the huge delays in scheduling them as the number of trials has been increasing. It now takes an average 498 days from charging to trial conclusion.

At the moment you only have a right to a jury trial for offences that carry a maximum sentence of two years or more. This is most offences. They are consulting on whether they should move to three, five or seven years.

If it moved to three years, it is estimated to reduce the number of jury trials by 7%.

Five years would see a 16% reduction.

Seven years would see a 23% reduction.

I think seven years would be too high a threshold. A possible sentence of five or six years should need a jury trial.

There is only one offence that has a maximum four year penalty so that if one goes for five years, effectively you will be saying that offences with a two or three year maximum will not get a jury trial. Those sort of offences never get the maximum, so in. reality would almost always just get a home detention sentence unless they are a serious recidivist.