Coroners and Justice Bill
12:00 pm
John Thornhill: Many courts now conduct cases, sentences and administrative hearings over live links. We have found no serious problems with them so far, and no problems have been reported to us. Clearly, there are concerns about whether the defendant fully understands what is happening. There are issues about the defendant not wishing to engage, and how we manage that particular situation. Contempt of court issues may arise, and that is something that we need to look at. In principle, at the moment, we find no serious problems with them, but we are concerned about the defendant’s ability to say that they do not want to be involved. That is what concerns us in the proposed legislation.