Britain scraps plan to curb jury trials after lawyer backlash

October 4, 2026 at 04:07 AM2 min

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Britain will scrap plans to remove the right to trial by jury for defendants in less serious criminal cases, the government announced on Sunday. The decision by Prime Minister Andy Burnham to drop his predecessor Keir Starmer's policy follows sustained criticism from lawyers and politicians. The move comes as hundreds of prisoners were released early to stop prisons becoming full.

Key Facts

The Ministry of Justice said plans to curb jury trials for cases where a jail sentence was likely to be less than three years would be abandoned.
Justice Secretary Alex Norris said he had heard the strength of feeling on proposals for increasing judge-alone trials in the Crown Court and decided to change course.
The backlog of cases awaiting trial by jury in Crown Courts in England and Wales was nearly 81,000 at the end of June, almost double the figure in 2020.
The Ministry of Justice said it would maintain plans that complex fraud trials could be heard by a judge alone.

Government Reversal

Britain will scrap plans to remove the right to trial by jury for defendants in less serious criminal cases, the government announced on Sunday. The decision by Prime Minister Andy Burnham, who took office in July, reverses a policy introduced under his predecessor Keir Starmer. The Ministry of Justice said plans to curb jury trials for cases where a jail sentence was likely to be less than three years would be abandoned. Justice Secretary Alex Norris said he had heard the strength of feeling on proposals for increasing judge-alone trials in the Crown Court and decided to change course.

Legal Community Response

The Criminal Bar Association and other groups broadly welcomed the decision to abandon the jury trial curbs. CBA chair Andrew Thomas thanked the government for listening to the evidence and reaching the right verdict, though he said a severe threat to trial by jury remains. The Bar Council's chair Kirsty Brimelow said giving magistrates greater powers when the backlog in magistrates' courts is increasing could be counterproductive. Lawyers raised concerns over the Ministry of Justice's decision to increase sentencing powers for magistrates and remove defendants' right to elect trial by jury.

Court Backlog

The backlog of cases awaiting trial by jury in Crown Courts in England and Wales was nearly 81,000 at the end of June, almost double the figure in 2020. Victims, defendants and witnesses often wait years for cases to come to trial. Starmer's justice minister David Lammy said last year that reducing jury trials would speed up justice, but met a furious backlash from lawyers who said it curtailed the fundamental right of defendants to be tried by a jury of their peers. Critics argued that years of neglect and under-investment by successive governments, rather than jury trials, were the root cause of delays. The head of England's judiciary raised grave security concerns for judges.