Truss humiliated over bid to shield accusers in rape trials
Minister got it wrong, says chief justice
REFORMS to shield women alleging rape during trials by allowing them to pre-record their testimony were halted by England’s most senior judge yesterday.
Lord Chief Justice Lord Thomas said the announcement of the dramatic change to sex crime cases made by Justice Secretary Liz Truss at the weekend was ‘wrong’.
Lord Thomas added that Miss Truss’s ministry had ‘misunderstood the thing completely’ and that he had written to all judges to tell them this.
The scathing slapdown for the Justice Secretary came just four days after she announced ‘new measures that will spare rape victims the trauma and incon- venience of attending court will be rolled out across the country’.
She added that playing pre-recorded evidence to juries would begin in September after ‘senior judges agreed to accelerate the scheme’.
However, Lord Thomas also disclosed that judges had been preparing to run test projects at three crown courts in which adults making accusations in rape and sex cases could record their evidence.
The Truss plan to shelter rape accusers from questioning provoked anger from men’s groups.
Their warning that it would bias the courts against defendants was followed by protests from senior lawyers who called the scheme unfair and unworkable.
Lord Thomas not only wrecked Miss Truss’s plan but made it plain that her claim that she had agreed it with judges was mistaken.
He told the House of Lords Constitution Committee: ‘I regret to say we had to correct a serious misapprehension that had arisen as a result of what the Ministry said about the roll-out and the way we were proceeding. They misunderstood the thing completely.’
‘It’s difficult to change culture’
Lord Thomas said of Miss Truss’s department: ‘It was a complete failure to understand the impracticalities of any of this. And that is very troubling.’
He spoke of a pilot scheme running at three courts in Liverpool, Leeds and Kingston-uponThames in Surrey, where children and vulnerable people in sex cases have been allowed to give pre-recorded evidence.
The Lord Chief Justice said there were plans for a new pilot to allow adult accusers to give pre-recorded evidence at the same three courts.
But Miss Truss’s announcement went much further and covered adult rape complainants across the country. Lord Thomas told peers: ‘We fought the Ministry from 1999 right through to about 2015 to get the pre- recording of children’s evidence brought into effect.
‘Through the very, very hard work of judges we had actually made the pilot work, and we want to roll it out, carefully, it is quite difficult changing the culture.
‘And then to find that instead of what we said we would do, that was sensible, it was announced that this would be rolled out across the country.’
The slapdown for Miss Truss was supported by Brian Hitchcock, head of legal services for Men’s Aid. ‘Allowing alleged rape victims to record their evidence before a trial is inherently sexist,’ he said.
‘ We do not hear about false evidence from women but threequarters of our work is dealing with false allegations. This plan is a breach of natural justice.’