Prime Minister Andy Burnham has abandoned Starmer’s controversial plans to remove the right to jury trials for thousands of Crown Court cases after backlash from lawyers, campaigners, and MPs.

The reversal, announced on 4 October, scraps proposals for judge-only trials in either-way cases carrying likely prison sentences of three years or less. Some lengthy fraud and financial cases could still be heard without juries.

Ministers will still press ahead with plans to remove defendants’ right to choose a jury trial for either-way offences. Either-way offences, including theft, can be tried in magistrates’ courts or the Crown Court.

Magistrates’ maximum sentencing powers would also rise from 12 to 18 months, with provision to extend them to two years. Ministers argue this would allow more cases to be dealt with in magistrates’ courts, freeing Crown Court capacity for the most serious offences. 

‘Justice needs juries’, Criminal Bar Association chair Andrew Thomas KC stated. ‘Nothing inspires more public trust than 12 ordinary citizens from all walks of life deciding the facts of a case together’.

‘Trial by jury is the gold standard of fairness, and we thank the Lord Chancellor and justice ministers for listening to the evidence and reaching the right verdict’.

However, he warned that a ‘severe threat’ remained in the Courts and Tribunals Bill. Removing defendants’ right to elect a Crown Court trial, combined with doubling magistrates’ sentencing powers to two years, would shift 25,000 cases annually, including 5,500 jury trials, he said. ‘It would be a car crash if they tried to do it, especially at this time’.

Nearly 81,000 Crown Court cases were outstanding at the end of June, with almost a third  having waited at least a year. Magistrates’ courts faced a record backlog of slightly over 380,000 cases.

Bar Council chair Kirsty Brimelow KC welcomed the reversal, describing jury trials as ‘the only part of the criminal justice system that actually works’.

But she said women, Black people, mixed-race people and older people ‘elect jury trials more often than other groups’, warning that removing defendants’ choice risked ‘deepening existing disparities and exacerbating distrust in the justice system from minoritised communities’.

Justice secretary Alex Norris said the reversal would allow other reforms to proceed sooner.

The Courts and Tribunals Bill returns to the Commons on 13 October.