Clause 62 - Cases that may be retried
Criminal Justice Bill
3:15 pm
Mr Simon Hughes (North Southwark and Bermondsey, Liberal Democrat)
The upside is that under the new proposals there would be an opportunity for the Court of Appeal to consider whether there could be a fair trial, a matter that we shall debate in due course. Arguments about media coverage would be part of that issue. In my judgment, honest assessment of cases would find that the only ones for which a fair trial would be likely in round two would be those that had received no significant media coverage in round one.
All big, significant cases would be likely to fall foul of the fair trial consideration. A two-tier justice system would emerge on round two. Famous cases, or cases affecting famous people, would never be retried, but retrial would be much more likely for Joe Public, whom no one had heard of and whose case was for some reason not regarded as important. The wider the range of relevant offences, the more likely that would be; a wounding offence would be in that category. So Joe Public might have a double disadvantage. First, he might have made a judgment, as he was perfectly entitled to do, that he should not give evidence in the
first trial, on the basis that there could be no retrial. Secondly, it seems he might be in the very category of person liable to be retried.