New Clause 4
Fraud (Trials Without a Jury) Bill
6:45 pm
Dominic Grieve (Shadow Attorney General & Shadow Spokesman On Community Cohesion, Law Officers (Assist the Home Affairs Team); Beaconsfield, Conservative)
I welcome this opportunity to look at new clause 4. It is a probing new clause to tease out the reasons why the Government think that jury trials might not be satisfactory in very long cases. There is a slight sense that we sometimes avoid the nub of the matter. The Government argued that very longtrials are burdensome on juries, but, of course, some very long, non-fraud trials will continue to be burdensome.
At the same time, although we have always accepted that trials are burdensome, evidence, such as that from the report into the Jubilee line case, does not support the view that juries cannot hear such cases, although, admittedly, our pool of information is limited because of the difficulty in interviewing juries. Personally, in my experience of fraud trials, or, indeed, trials in general, verdicts have never been inexplicable or appeared perverse. It is true that, on occasions, I have seen people acquitted when I might have taken a different view—that tends to happen when one is prosecuting—but I have never felt that the jury had done something plainly wrong or that there was no material on which it reached its decision. That is one of the reasons why I have so much faith in jury trials.
When applying my own experience, however, perhaps I should be more concerned about whether I have ever had a case in which a guilty verdict was returned and I was worried because I thought that the defendant ought to have been acquitted. We know that such cases happen and, of course, those are the ones that get overturned in the Court of Appeal with the wonderful words of the appeal judge: “We feel that there is a lingering doubt”. However, statistically, such cases are few and far between and in my professional experience I hardly ever encountered them.
When we ask why we should get rid of juries in long fraud trials, we come to some difficult issues, on which my right hon. and learned Friend the Member for Sleaford and North Hykeham touched. He raised the question of whether the truth was not simply that the Government want to get rid of juries in long fraud trials because they believe that they will secure a higher rate of conviction. They are wrong. I do not believe that that is likely to happen.
There is a final possibility. If jurors are forced to remain in court for a very long time listening to a fraud trial, might that make them prejudiced against the defendant to such an extent that they would, at that stage, lose sight of their duty, so that the safety of the verdict could be impugned?
These are quite difficult areas. I see this as a probing new clause designed to tease out what the Government really think. If they have faith in the jury trial system—they are always repeating that they do—they have no reason to feel that jury verdicts are less safe than any others, and I think that that is their stated position. Do they feel, however, that in long trials the safety of the verdict can be called into question? If so, would the Solicitor-General like to tell us why?
I personally take the view—I can only repeat it—that on the whole jury trial delivers a very high quality of justice and does so in a way that is transparent, that the public have come to accept and that, for the reasons given by my right hon. and learned Friend the Member for Sleaford and North Hykeham, is seen to be fair and to provide a safeguard against state oppression—a safeguard that is so important.
If the Solicitor-General has other views, this is our opportunity in Committee to understand what exactly is troubling the Government about long trials. Is the issue anything other than just the burdensomeness to jurors of having to attend court for a long period?