Jury trials for crimes that carry a likely sentence of less than three years will be scrapped, the justice secretary has announced.
The reforms to the justice system include creating “swift courts” under the government’s plan to tackle unprecedented delays in the court system.
Serious offences including murder, robbery and rape, will still go before a jury.
Crucially, volunteer community magistrates, who deal with the majority of all criminal cases, will take on even more work.
A previous version of the plan, leaked to the BBC and the Times last week, was to end jury trial for most crimes attracting sentences of up to five years.
But announcing the reforms in the Commons on Tuesday, David Lammy has retreated from the most radical proposals.
Lammy said the new system would get cases dealt with a fifth faster than jury trials.
He added that it was necessary as current projections have Crown Court case loads reaching 100,000 by 2028, from the current backlog of almost 78,000.
This means that currently a suspect being charged with an offence today may not reach trial until 2030.
Six out of 10 victims of rape are said to be withdrawing from prosecutions because of delays.
There are around 1.3m prosecutions in England and Wales every year, and 10% of those cases go before a Crown Court. Of those, three out of 10 result in trials.
The reforms appear to mean that more than two out of 10 will still go before a jury. Critics of restrictions to trial by jury – including almost all barristers – say it won’t have any impact on the backlogs because the real problem has been cuts to the Ministry of Justice.
