Early prisoner releases are Starmer’s mistake. Burnham must not make them his own

From defence and the economy to healthcare and pensions, our latest prime minister must quickly get to grips with the myriad of challenges that have eluded his predecessors. Such is the scale of the job that it’s no wonder the premiership has become a poisoned political chalice.

If I were in a position to advise Mr Burnham on what his early priorities should be, then I would suggest doing something that clearly distances him from the most damaging mistakes of the outgoing government, and addresses an issue that 58% of the public report as a major concern - criminal justice.

Unfortunately, it is no exaggeration to say that our criminal justice system is broken, and abjectly failing in its role to keep the public safe. As a criminal defence solicitor of over 20 years, it is now standard for me to be involved in cases that take in excess of five years from arrest to verdict, subjecting complainants to difficult delays and leaving defendants in limbo.

This is confounded by a prisons system that is beyond the point of collapse, with our prisons overcrowded and poorly managed. The sum result is that dangerous offenders are left loose on our streets, and genuine victims of crime are denied access to fair and timely justice.

Keir Starmer and David Lammy responded to these challenges by announcing plans to scale back trials by jury, and allowing the release of convicted criminals midway through their sentences. Neither of these policies has any substantive impact on answering the problems they propose to solve - there is no convincing evidence that juries are the cause of court delays, and the early release of prisoners will undoubtedly raise rates of re-offending.

This is already clear in the statistics; whilst recent figures show a stabilisation of cases entering the Crown Court, this burden has simply been shifted to the Magistrates’ Court, with the additional funding allocated by the outgoing government insufficient to deal with decades of underinvestment.

In my view, there is no question that the scale-back of jury trials was an ideological objective, designed to replace an ancient democratic principle with a more inquisitorial, European-style, judge-led criminal justice system. This was not in Labour’s general election manifesto, and is overwhelmingly opposed by both the public and the legal profession.

Addressing the real causes of these crises will not be simple, but Mr Burnham and his new Justice Minister Alex Norris stand to achieve a lot in dispensing with these reforms and instituting some common-sense changes.

Whereas I have seen perhaps a handful of cases in my career delayed by issues with the jury, I have seen hundreds derailed by the failure of third-party companies to transport defendants to court in time. This would surely be improved by bringing these services back in-house or giving judges the power to hold executives at these firms in contempt.

Similarly, I see our courts routinely backlogged by weak or spurious cases that are unfit to be tried. Funding more proactive engagement between the defence and the prosecution, and therefore allowing these cases to be identified earlier in the system, would give courtrooms more time to spend on those with a reasonable chance of conviction.

If the prime minister wants to be bolder, he might dispense with the administrative requirement for the most serious cases, such as rape or murder, to start in the Magistrates’ Court - letting them go straight to a jury trial in the Crown Court, rather than being sent there four weeks later. Expanding court sitting days, and ordering courts to hear cases seven days a week, would be even easier.

Nightingale-style temporary prisons are surely more politically popular than releasing violent criminals early, but are admittedly not a long-term solution. What Mr Burnham may consider is putting pressure on foreign governments to take back the 11,000 foreign nationals convicted of crimes in Britain - a measure that would effectively address the 14,000 prison space shortfall, without a single new prison needing to be built.

Each of these measures would take time and investment, and Mr Burnham’s willingness to admit that the policies of his predecessor were flawed. However, they would go a long way in rebuilding the public’s trust - and showing the electorate that Labour is committed to keeping them safe from crime.

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Marcus Johnstone is a criminal defence lawyer specialising in sexual offences and Managing Director of PCD Solicitors.

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