Courts and Tribunals Bill (First sitting)

Amanda Hack Excerpts

Committee stage
Wednesday 25th March 2026 Public Bill Committees

[Amanda Hack (North West Leicestershire) (Lab)]

Q To put the focus back on victims, Dame Vera explained clearly that it is the defendant who chooses. What would be the victim’s choice?

Dame Vera Baird: Is that not part of why this is very odd? We do not give a person alleged to have committed a very serious crime and whose life will be utterly transformed by what happens in the jury a right not to have a jury trial or to pick where he goes at all—and why would we?—but we do give that right to a small cohort of people on relatively small trials. Some of the trials are big, but the bigger ones will go into the judge court, not stay in the magistrates court. Why, when we have legislated for where these cases should be tried, do we allow that relatively small cohort to pick, in addition to the legislation the state has set out? The difference is between a magistrates court case coming in six months and a Crown court case coming in three or four years. That is the impact on the victim. For what?

As I have already said, the majority—73%—of people offered a jury trial do not take it up. There is no understanding anywhere—not at the Bar, I can tell you—that it is fairer than a judge-alone or magistrates trial would be. Everybody at the Bar has had cases where they were absolutely shocked when a conviction happened because they never thought it possible and cases where they have got people off when they never thought it possible—of course, they are very chipper about that. Ask them when they come later. There is absolutely no hallmark anywhere that says jury trial is the only fair way.

Judges find facts in all kinds of cases outside the criminal courts. Of course, they also do so in trials; they have to decide, “Is there enough factual evidence here even for a case that a jury can answer?” They are a pretty good substitute for a jury—if that is how you want to look at it—to deliver fair trial.

[The Chair]

Kieran has asked me to come back in, but please keep it tight.

--- Later in debate ---

[Jess Brown-Fuller]

Q I appreciate that—thank you. It was a question for you, Charlotte, about the shock that you experienced when you tried to request the sentencing remarks. Is that correct? You were quoted £20,000 and you found that people trying to get their court transcripts generally were being quoted incredibly high prices. As you mentioned, the Government have moved on that, so sentencing remarks will be available from spring next year. We are continuing to try to push that further: we do not think that sentencing remarks often tell the entire story.

There is an amendment that is going to the House of Commons today that is specifically about bail decisions and the route to verdict that juries are presented with before they go away to deliberate. Do you agree that sentencing remarks are only part of the journey that we need to be on, and that we need to be quite ambitious in ensuring victims have all the evidence in their own case, so they can start to move on and process?

Charlotte Meijer: Yes, absolutely. My campaign for all transcripts to be made available very quickly was shut down, so I have gone for little bits at a time. Sentencing remarks are an amazing change. At first, that was just for rape victims; now it is for all victims, which is great. However, if we look at RASSO cases, only 2% get a guilty verdict, so only 2% will get the free sentencing remarks. There needs to be something for the 98%.

The next thing that I have been campaigning for is the judge’s summing up, now the route to verdict, which is incredibly important. I am a not guilty verdict case, so I would not get my sentencing remarks either. It is about being able to understand. If we take that further, I believe the whole case should be available free, as it is in many other countries, or for a couple of pounds in administration costs. If we are taking it a bit at a time, the next bit would be, as you say, bail conditions and the route to verdict, to understand how someone got to that decision. That is all to aid people to understand what happened and process it a little better.

[Amanda Hack]

Q Thank you for sharing your experiences. It has been incredibly powerful. Jade Blue, you said that change is not optional—we need to reduce the suffering. That has resonated with me. We need to create a system that is bearable. As victims—and you have obviously experienced trials at different places in the system—do you feel that these reforms would have made the system bearable? Is there anything specific in the reforms that you could point to?

Jade Blue McCrossen-Nethercott: I guess there is the hope of fewer adjournments and fewer last-minute changes, which we hear about quite a lot. Any measure that could increase capacity for these kinds of cases is a measure we could get behind. Just having that—being able to plan your life and have reassurances that it will be going ahead—is important.

In the past, one of us mentioned floating trials for rape cases, which is, quite frankly, just absurd. Being able to have dedicated time to ensure that these cases do not become floating trials and that there is capacity for them to be seen in a prompt and timely manner would be welcome.

Morwenna Loughman: The first time my trial was listed, unbeknown to me and the rest of my family, it was listed as a floating trial, which means that two or more cases—in this instance, rape cases—are scheduled for the same time, on the same date and in the same court, on the assumption that at least two of you will drop over the course because it is so harrowing and re-traumatising. That is why mine got delayed right at the last minute.

We have talked a lot about the education of judges, which is absolutely essential, but we must also consider the education of juries. As I have said, they are not bastions of infallibility. The man who raped me was convicted. He was found guilty, but not unanimously. He was sentenced to 15 years, which gives an indication as to the level of injury that I sustained.

Two members of the jury found him not guilty and acquitted him of all charges. It was a majority vote; there was no unanimity, and it took them three and a half days to deliberate, even though I had received 48 injuries and he was arrested on the scene. I could go on about the extenuating circumstances. In every sense, how did it take them three and a half days to not even conclusively decide that this man had raped me?

Charlotte Meijer: I will add to that. The removal in the Bill of the defendant’s right to elect will make the victim feel empowered, knowing that the perpetrator is not in control. As I have said, there is the recording of magistrates courts, and the Bill is our hope that the waiting time will go down. That is the core reason why we are doing this. The system cannot get any worse than it is, so the waiting going down will be a significant change.

[Joe Robertson]

Q Thank you very much for sharing these very powerful experiences to help all of us here make better decisions. I would like to direct my questions not to the criminal court changes, but the family court changes. I should say that I was a practising family law solicitor and represented mothers who wanted to stop abusive fathers from seeing their children, and my wife is still a practising family law solicitor, registered with the Solicitors Regulation Authority and the Law Society.

I turn specifically to the removal of the presumption that a child should have involvement from both parents. What do you say to the overwhelming body of evidence that for most children—not all, but most—it is in their best interests to have some contact with both parents?

Farah Nazeer: The point is about abusive relationships. If the court is set up to look at the welfare of the child primarily, if there is not a history of abuse or domestic abuse in that setting, that will invariably be the outcome. This is to protect those cases where there is abuse within the context of the relationship, so it is not a case of one thing or another thing; it clears the path so a court can look objectively at whether or not there is a safeguarding issue there for the child without the burden of the presumption of contact. You start with the welfare of the child.