Monday Message 28.07.25
Progress:
Respect does not equate with agreement. It is possible to fundamentally disagree on the means by to mend the broken criminal justice system and still respect other’s opinions and the important role that each play. We have been afforded that respect by the Lord Chancellor, the Minister of State for Justice and the Ministry of Justice. We have been asked to attend a series of meetings, and to provide written, alternate suggestions as to how to mitigate waste and inefficiency within the system. We have an open and constructive dialogue which is appreciated.
In our meeting with the Lord Chancellor last week, we raised an issue which we have been repeating every fortnight for twelve months in our helpful meetings with the MOJ. You will understand that progress thus far has awaited the Leveson Review, the Treasury Spending Review, and will now await the Autumn budget, but we have no doubt that the Government understands that any repair to the criminal justice system requires the experience, skill and talent of a vibrant, diverse criminal Bar.
The CBA have worked tirelessly to represent the interests of all members of the criminal Bar and will continue to do so in the years to come.
In our conversation, we discussed that the MOJ is considering the possibility of multi-year funding settlements for the criminal Bar and that the MOJ will look to say more in the Autumn.
The Snap Survey:
This survey was commissioned by the CBA and carried out by Professor Katrin Hohl, City of St. George’s University of London. Individual responses remain anonymous.
This survey required a short turn-around time due to the date of the release of the Leveson Review and the window of opportunity to respond to it by the Parliamentary Recess.
In the seven days that the Survey was open, 2029 criminal barristers responded. We are grateful to all of you who responded. Professor Hohl indicated that “This snap survey received a phenomenal number of responses in absolute terms and in relative terms (response rate) compared to the size of the criminal Bar, and given the survey was only open for one week. This may be an indication of the strength of feeling at the criminal Bar and desire to have their voices heard and listened to as the Government considers the Leveson proposals.” To ensure that the survey was not, consciously or sub-consciously, designed to produce opposition, we instructed an independent expert who also undertakes work for the MOJ.
All response options commenced with “support” then “neutral” then “negative.” We did not ask for views on each and every recommendation in the Review as many of them did not directly impact on the criminal Bar.
Of those who responded, 84% undertook publicly funded criminal work. Members of all Circuits completed the survey, and we are grateful to the Circuit Leaders for their encouragement of their members to do so.
Support for the Leveson Proposals:
| Proposal | Support |
| Removal of the automatic right to appeal against sentence from the Magistrates’ Court to the Crown Court. | 89% |
| Increased credit for a guilty plea to 40% in the Magistrates’ Court. | 79.9% |
| Delayed PTPH pilot – 12 weeks | 78.4% |
Opposition to the Leveson Proposals:
There was widespread opposition to the following proposals:
| Proposal | % opposing |
| No right of appeal against a Judge’s decision at PTPH that a case will be heard in the CCBD rather than by Judge and jury. | 93.7% |
| CCBD cases to include sexual offences against children | 91.9% |
| CCBD cases to include sexual offences against adults | 90.8% |
| Creation of a CCBD to deal with either way offences with the starting point for sentence would be three years’ custody or less | 88.5% |
| After election to the Crown Court, the Judge makes the decision on a CCBD or jury election. | 87.8% |
| CCBD cases to include violence against women and girls including stalking and voyeurism | 86.1% |
| Removal of automatic right to appeal against conviction from the Magistrates’ Court | 84.3% |
| Increasing Magistrate’s sentencing powers to 12 months’ custody – temporary | 81.7% |
| Judge only trials for cases lasting a year or longer. | 80.6% |
| Creation of a new CCBD with maximum sentencing powers of two years’ custody | 79.8% |
| Judge alone trials for complex and serious fraud. | 78.2% |
| A panel of a Judge and two expert lay assessors to try serious and complex fraud cases. | 75.7% |
| Criteria for appeals against conviction from the Magistrates’ Court to require written skeleton arguments and responses | 69.8% |
| Audio recording of Magistrates’ court proceedings | 59.8% |
| Increasing Magistrates sentencing powers to 12 months’ custody-permanent | 57.8% |
Impacts of the Leveson Proposals:
| Proposal | negative |
| The right to trial by jury | 75.8% |
| Fairness | 68.7% |
| The accused | 63.4% |
| Retention and recruitment at the Bar | 64.1% |
| Working life as a barrister | 53.9% |
| Judicial diversity in the CCBD | 94% |
| Likelihood that you will leave the criminal Bar | 44.1% |
Only 5.9% of the criminal Bar were not at all concerned as to the potential of a lack of diversity of the new CCBD.
If the Leveson Proposals regarding a CCBD are brought in, then 77.6% considered that it should be piloted first.
Alternative Proposals put forward by Practitioners:
| Proposal | % who support |
| Retention of the automatic right to jury trial for either way offences | 94.6% |
| Retention of the automatic right to jury trial for indictable only offences | 93% |
| Retention of the automatic right to appeal against conviction from the Magistrates’ Court | 94.6% |
| Return to old-style committals where the Magistrates can only commit to Crown Court when the case is evidentially ready | 89.1% |
The criminal Bar considers, according to the Snap Survey, that the top two priorities to fix the crumbling criminal justice system should be:
| Criminal Bar’s view on their top two priorities | % |
| Increase Crown Court sitting days: | 82.3% |
| Increase court efficiency prisoners to court on time functioning wifi functioning audio and video equipment presence of required interpreter |
71.6% |
| Recruit Crown Court Judges with a background of a practice in criminal law | 27.6% |
| Fix the Crown Court buildings heating, toilets, leaks, lifts, canteens | 10.5% |
Many others considered the matters above to be high priority. We thank Riel Karmy-Jones KC for her work on the survey and Professor Katrin Hohl for hers.
Letter to HMCI of the CPS:
Last week, the Chair of the Bar Council, Barbara Mills KC and the Chair of the CBA sent a joint letter to HMCI of the CPS following his decision to comment on the motivation of the criminal Bar’s position on the Leveson Review. The letter can be read here.
The annual CPS report 2025-2025:
Criminal barristers prosecute serious cases across the country every court day and have continued to prosecute rape cases despite the fact that they still earn considerably less when doing so than when defending. The report mentions the word “barrister” once, in relation to the Go Prosecute scheme in which members of the Bar returning from maternity leave are encouraged to join the CPS.
Throughout its successes and failings in the report it does not mention the criminal Bar who prosecute the vast majority of its cases, nor the names of its in-house advocates, where a successful prosecution is mentioned, who have performed exceptionally well in difficult circumstances. In relation to its success in getting more “specialist advocates” onto the RASSO panel it makes no mention of collaborative working with the CBA which created this improvement in numbers, nor did it thank us or the Circuit Leaders for providing the training for those new advocates.
The survey of the public which the CPS referred to within the report indicated that 55% consider that CPS is independent, 54% consider it to be fair and 45% consider it to be effective. The CPS accepts within the report that there is on-going racial disparity in charging decisions and the language used in written charging advices. The report can be read here:
Of note, the CPS statistics have always been the most reliable of those within the system and they produce some results of interest.
In 2024-2025 there were 22,929 committals for sentence and 9,978 appeals against sentence and conviction. The defendant appears to have been put to his right of election of jury trial in only 4,238 cases (5.58%) whereas 43,460 cases were sent to the Crown Court by the Magistrates Court (56.62%) as being to serious to be deal with by them.
Indictable only offences amounted to 29,010 cases (37.8%). In 2024-2025 the prosecution appears to have dropped 12,123 cases (15.72%) before trial. We know that the guilty plea rate is 70% but pleas are being entered later in the process. If we consider that every case which was dropped, and all appeals against conviction and sentence were removed from the list, and each took one hour of time, in a period of 12 months that could amount to 6,430 sitting days if each case took an hour. Something to consider.
Evidence in Sexual Offences Prosecutions:
The Law Commission’s final report on Evidence in Sexual Offences Prosecutions has been published. The report was informed by the detailed responses the commission received to the 2023 consultation paper.
It contains major recommendations that aim to improve sexual offence complainants’ experiences of the trial process, to minimise the risk of rape myths entering the trial process and to ensure that defendants receive a fair trial. These recommendations include reform to rules of evidence to address myths and misconceptions about sexual violence, as well as improvements to the legal process.
The report can be downloaded from the project website.
A summary, Welsh summary, and easy-read version of the report as well as an impact assessment will be published in due course.
PRE Project – External User Update:
The PRE Project has now moved into live service, the project is experiencing a number of counsel reporting issues to court clerks. These issues are mostly ‘license request failed’ error messages.
This is likely to be because the user has not logged into their account since they registered. If this is for 90 days or more, you will be locked out of your account. You will need to contact the CTSC, by telephone 0300 323 0194 or by email [email protected] who will reactive it.
This is the fastest way to receive technical support.
The PRE Application and PRE Portal team have invited questions, feedback, or issues to the live service inbox, at [email protected]
Yours,
Mary Prior KC
Chair, The Criminal Bar Association
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