Sports halls ‘can help exercise of justice’

COURTROOMS could be swapped for sports halls and hotel conference centres to tackle the growing backlog of criminal trials, the head of the judiciary has said.

The Lord Chief Justice, Lord Burnett, told MPS that civil trials, family cases and tribunals could take place in makeshift courts to free up space for jury trials during the Covid-19 crisis.

He said the plans were being “looked at in detail” because around 1,000 crown court trials a month are being added to the backlog of criminal cases, which had already reached 37,434 by December last year.

Jury trials, which ground to a halt in March, started back up this week at four crown courts across England and Wales, including the Old Bailey, Cardiff, Bristol and Manchester Minshull Street.

Further trials are expected in Reading, Warwick and Winchester next week, but strict social distancing rules mean they will likely be spread across three courtrooms.

Lord Burnett said temporary legislation may need to be passed to allow more crown court trials to go ahead.

He said judge-only trials should only be considered “in extremis” but added that the number of jurors could be reduced from 12 members to seven – which happened during the Second World War, except for cases of murder or treason.

He added: “The other thing that’s being looked at and looked at in detail is the possibility of using outside accommodation to conduct court hearings.

“Now I suspect the reality is that it would be easier to conduct civil trials, tribunal cases and family cases in hotel conference centres and sports halls and things of that sort, than jury trials.

“But that’s being looked at and might provide an opportunity for courts to be freed up to be used for the cases that really can’t be dealt with anywhere else.”