Jurors to watch trials in Odeons by end of month

JURORS will watch criminal trials in cinemas by the end of this month as the justice system attempts to clear the coronavirus backlog.

The Scottish Courts and Tribunal Service (SCTS) will take over selected Odeon complexes and turn them into remote jury centres.

This will allow the resumption of High Court trials for the first time since they stopped as the country went into lockdown in March.

The SCTS will start using the Odeon cinema in Fort Kinnaird in Edinburgh from September 28 and the cinema at Braehead in Glasgow from October 11.

This will allow court business levels to return to pre-Covid levels.

Jury citations have already been sent out and the first three trials are set to begin in the High Court in Edinburgh, Edinburgh Sheriff Court and Livingston

Sheriff Court, with jurors viewing proceedings from the Fort Kinnaird complex. The SCTS has chosen cinemas based on the technology available inside them and the space they provide to allow jurors to physically distance.

They also feature sound-proofed rooms which will keep jury deliberations secret.

Juries will be picked in the courtroom in advance without jurors being present in a building and only the 15 jurors balloted – plus a small number of substitutes – need to go to the cinema for the trial.

It is the first time in the UK that such a system has been developed for conducting trials and the Scottish Government has already pledged £5.5million in funding to fire up the justice system again. Eric McQueen, chief executive of the SCTS, said: ‘We are grateful to Odeon Cinemas for working alongside us to make the concept of remote jury centres a reality.

‘We need to move swiftly to increase the number of High Court trials taking place and we will do this incrementally as soon as we can.’

Ronnie Renucci, QC, Vice-Dean of Faculty and President of the Scottish Criminal Bar Association, said: ‘The use of cinemas as remote jury centres is an innovative and unique solution to the problem of conducting jury trials during the present restrictions.’

David Harvie, chief executive of the Crown Office and Procurator Fiscal Service, added: ‘The opening of these jury centres is an important step which will allow for the number of High Court trials held to come back up to prepandemic levels.’