Clause 38 - Application by prosecution for trial to be
Criminal Justice Bill
5:40 pm
Mr Humfrey Malins (Woking, Conservative)
The amendment relates to clause 38, which considers the important and increasing problem of jury tampering.
There are two sides to the argument. One says that we should protect jury trial whatever the cost, and the other that we should do all that we can to prevent jury tampering, and thereby save a lot of money.
It is as well to understand the sophisticated techniques and the determination of those who would tamper with our juries. We should also understand that it costs a lot of money to protect a jury, and that there is a lot more jury tampering than there used to be.
I shall give the Committee an example, which concerns a big drugs case in Liverpool. I believe that these issues particularly affect the inner-city areas, the big metropolises such as Liverpool, Manchester and Birmingham, where the drug culture is strong, and gang warfare prevalent. The drugs case took place not many months ago in Liverpool and lasted for six weeks. On the first day of the judge's summing up, one juror was followed home and offered money to produce a verdict sympathetic to the defendant. He told the judge about it the following day, and the judge said that he would discharge him and that the trial would continue. The next day, two more jurors were followed home, badly threatened, and came in trembling the following day. The jury had to be discharged and a new trial had to start. How much would that trial have cost over six weeks? A parliamentary answer that I received on 10 July 1997 said that the Crown court cost us £7,800 a day: I believe that that has now increased to £9,000. Six weeks of that amount per day equates to £270,000.
Other protection measures have an increasing cost. In the retrial of that drugs case the jury had to be bussed into court; they were picked up in special vehicles from their homes. In a most unusual circumstance, they also were not identified by name. The clerk gave a card numbered 1 to 50 to each of the jury panel and kept another parallel set of cards. When they were being empanelled, the clerk, having shuffled her own pack of cards, called out No. 3, No. 17 or No. 16, for example, rather than calling out John Smith or Fred Brown. That sort of procedure is becoming increasingly prevalent.
In the same court, people smuggle in mobile phones, take photographs of the jurors and send text messages containing the photographs to contacts outside, so that the jurors can be followed home. In the same court and elsewhere, people send text messages from mobile phones smuggled into court about what the witnesses say and what the jurors look like. In another court or the same court a prosecuting barrister was beaten up and could not carry on. That is the background, and it illustrates the problems that we face.
The other side of the coin is to say that, whatever happens, never mind the expense or the worry, we must try to proceed with a jury. That is why the amendment would tighten up subsection (3) so that, rather than saying that when an application is made under subsection (2), the judge must be satisfied that
conditions are fulfilled, it says that the judge should be sure. That is a higher standard. One can be satisfied, on the balance of probabilities, but the standard of being sure is higher.
Other amendments will be spoken to by the hon. Member for Southwark, North and Bermondsey, and there will be further debate on stand part, but I am trying, despite the worrying picture of jury tampering that I outlined a few moments ago, to ensure that the court will proceed with great caution before saying that a case is to be conducted by judge alone. It seems more sensible for a judge to be ''sure'' that conditions are being fulfilled than to be ''satisfied''. The judge can be sure only on the basis of oral evidence heard privately, perhaps—almost certainly—in the presence of counsel for both sides, perhaps in chambers, perhaps in court, but almost certainly in the absence of the press or members of the public. The judge would have to be satisfied on the basis of evidence put before him. By definition, that would be anecdotal, rather as with an application for a search warrant.
A magistrate or district judge granting a warrant has to be content that the information laid before him is true, rather than conducting a deep inquiry into it. He has to take the word of the officer that there is a drugs offence going on at a certain address. Similarly, in the Crown court, the judge will have to hear all evidence. The amendment seeks to protect the position more strongly than the clause does now, by saying that before moving to make such an order, the judge should be sure.