Orders of the Day — Criminal Justice Bill

Part of the debate – in the House of Commons at 3:35 pm on 4 December 2002.

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Photo of David Blunkett David Blunkett The Secretary of State for the Home Department 3:35, 4 December 2002

I will in two seconds. Let me take the point further. The trial judges were both concerned about the impact of that. In fact, the second trial judge made it absolutely clear that he believed that there was a major problem in terms of the jury in the first trial being able to assess the full weight of the evidence in that trial, because they were not able to hear the second and third trial evidence. They were unable to do so because, as the first trial judge said, they could not face the likelihood of those three lots of evidence being put together in one trial. It was unthinkable, he said, that it was possible for that to be done. That is why he separated matters into three different elements, two of which were never heard for the reasons that I have enunciated. Therefore, that is why the second trial judge recommended that such trials should in future be heard by a judge rather than by a jury.