U-turn as Gove axes ‘perverse’ court fees
A CONTROVERSIAL courts charge is to be scrapped by the Government following a humiliating U-turn.
Justice Secretary Michael Gove announced he was axing the fee, which was imposed by his predecessor, Chris Grayling.
It is the latest in a string of his policies to be overturned. Since April, magistrates and judges have been forced to levy a charge of between £150 and £1,200 on any adult convicted of an offence on top of fines, compensation and legal costs.
The charge, which is not meanstested, is higher for anyone who is convicted after pleading not guilty. After it was imposed, more than 50 JPs quit in protest amid evidence that some innocent defendants had a ‘perverse incentive’ to plead guilty and pay the minimum £150 charge instead of risking a bigger fee if they were convicted after a trial.
Critics said many defendants simply couldn’t afford to pay the charge. They also pointed out that it often resulted in victims being awarded less compensation.
Conservative MP Bob Neill, chairman of the cross-party Justice Committee, said they had seen evidence that the charge led sentencers to ‘reduce awards of compensation’.
And the lord chief justice Lord Thomas claimed the measure meant only the rich had proper access to justice – which he said ‘imperilled a core principle of Magna Carta’.
In a speech yesterday, Mr Gove announced that the fee – introduced in a bid to ensure that criminals ‘pay their way’ – had flopped. He told a meeting of the Magistrates’ Association: ‘While the intention behind the policy was honourable, in reality that intent has fallen short.’
Malcolm Richardson, chairman of the Magistrates’ Association, said: ‘He clearly listened to magistrates. Our members have observed widespread unjust outcomes in its application. In all my years on the bench, I’ve never seen something strike so hard at the heart of justice.’
Ben Summerskill, director of the Criminal Justice Alliance, said: ‘Introducing a charge which created an incentive to plead guilty to a crime someone hadn’t committed wasn’t justice, it was nonsense on stilts.’
And Nigel Allcoat, a 65-year- old magistrate who resigned in protest over the court charge – after offering to pay the charge for a penniless asylum seeker – said: ‘What a waste of time sorting out something that was so inept in the first place. It has been perhaps one of the most ghastly bits of legislation in modern times.’
The charges are due to be scrapped on December 24. Yesterday a Labour spokesman claimed the party had long warned that the ‘mandatory nature of the fee could lead to miscarriages of justice’.
The U-turn is the latest to affect Mr Grayling’s policies. In July Mr Gove scrapped plans to build an £85million ‘fortified school’ to educate teenage prisoners. In December the High Court ruled that Mr Grayling’s ban on sending books to inmates was unlawful. And four months later, judges overturned an ‘unfair’ ban on sending high-risk violent prisoners to open jails.
‘Struck at the heart of justice’