Judge mystified by low rate of early guilty pleas
Maidstone Crown Court has one of the worst records in the country for offenders entering early guilty pleas, it has been revealed.
The average for admitting culpability at the plea and trial preparation stage is 27-29%, compared with 40% at Canterbury, 50% at Guildford and more than 50% at Lewes.
It led Resident Judge Jeremy Carey to ask: “Is it something in the water at Maidstone Crown Court? Is it because defendants think Maidstone juries are susceptible to risible defences?”
In contrast, he said the court had a heavy cracked trial rate, where hearings are dropped, usually because a defendant changes their plea to guilty on the day.
“Defendants come to court when juries are waiting to come down and they plead guilty,” he said.
Judge Carey revealed the statistics after questioning a defendant’s decision to elect trial for a violent offence when the evidence pointed strongly to his guilt.
“He must be living in another world, absolute nonsense,” he said, before going on to disqualify himself from being the trial judge.
Addressing a senior Crown Prosecution Service lawyer monitoring cases the judge said: “I am doing my best. I need to convey that message to you. You can take a horse to water and all that.
“I still don’t have an answer as to why is it at Maidstone Crown Court, and I have been here 13 years, we have, generally speaking, a lower guilty plea rate than other courts in the country, let alone the South East.
“I am speaking quite bluntly because it is a subject that has vexed me in the seven years I have been Resident Judge. I can’t find an answer to that.”
The court has, for some time, suffered with a huge backlog of cases and trials being set for as long as a year ahead.
In May last year the number of cases waiting to be heard totalled 700.