Under a shake-up of the legal system, it transpires that juries are to be scrapped in all cases except murder, rape and manslaughter. The majority of cases will be heard by a judge alone in new plans pushed by Justice Secretary David Lammy – in a move that goes much further than the suggestions of Sir Brian Leveson, who reviewed the UK’s criminal courts this year. Good heavens…

As reported by the Times , a memo sent by Lammy to ministers and civil servants insisted there was ‘no right’ to jury trials in the UK – before adding that radical action was necessary to slash the justice backlog in England and Wales. The Deputy Prime Minister wants to create a new tier of court where serious criminal offences will be tried by judges alone. One of Leveson’s recommendations had been to set up an

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