PCC Rupert Matthews lambasts Lammy on plans to scrap trials by jury

Rupert Matthews, Police and Crime Commissioner for Leicester, Leicestershire and Rutland, has launched a stinging attack on the Government’s plans to abolish trial by jury in all but the most ‘serious’ crimes.

In a letter to Justice Secretary David Lammy, he said that the removal of the right to be judged by a jury would be ‘an act of vandalism against the moral architecture of our democracy’.

Mr Matthews points out that only a few years ago Mr Lammy said plainly and proudly that jury trials are a fundamental part of our democratic settlement and that criminal trials without juries are a bad idea.

He continues: “It is an unbearably bitter irony that international courts fight to defend the rights of foreign offenders to avoid deportation, yet here at home the government shrugs indifferently at the abolition of trial by jury for British citizens. The contrast would be laughable if it were not so dark.”

The full letter can be found by clicking here. 

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