Government urged to reconsider fraud trials

The City of London Law Society's Corporate Crime & Corruption Committee has raised significant concerns regarding proposals to retain judge-only trials for fraud offences. They argue that such a move is unprincipled and unsupported by evidence, potentially undermining the rule of law. Although the government's partial retreat on jury trial reform has been acknowledged as a positive step, apprehensions persist regarding amendments to the Courts and Tribunals Bill that would still allow “technical and lengthy fraud and financial offences” to be heard solely by a judge.

In September 2025, the Committee submitted a comprehensive response to Sir Brian Leveson's Independent Review of the Criminal Courts and provided supplementary evidence to the Lord Chancellor after the Courts and Tribunals Bill was published. Their comments highlighted a troubling shift in the government's rationale for eliminating jury trials in fraud cases. The original justification framed by Sir Brian focused on resolving the backlog of nearly 81,000 Crown Court cases. The government has since modified this argument to suggest that juror inconvenience, rather than backlog reduction, necessitates judge-only trials.

The Committee's response unequivocally stated, "there appears to be no evidence that trial by jury of serious and complex fraud is a cause of, or a significant contributor to, the current crisis." With the discard of the backlog reduction argument, the legal foundation for this exceptional measure appears to have weakened considerably. The Committee warned that if juror inconvenience is a valid reason for removing the right to jury trials in fraud cases, then no principled distinction exists to prevent this rationale from being applied to any lengthy trial, including complex murder or major drug conspiracy cases.

Recent events have further complicated the matter, particularly following the Supreme Court's judgment in R v Hayes & Palombo concerning the Libor cases. The Court highlighted that successive judges had misdirected juries and that the Court of Appeal failed to uphold appeals from defendants. This directly contradicts arguments from fraud trial reform advocates, as the Libor cases illustrate not that juries are incapable of managing complex fraud, but rather that judicial misdirection can lead to serious errors. Removing the jury would not eliminate judicial mistakes; it would eliminate a critical safeguard by depriving defendants of the assessment from twelve independent minds concerning the evidence presented.

The Committee has been adamant that the backlog is primarily a result of under-resourcing, failures in digital disclosures, a reduction in court sitting days, police capacity issues, and the overall court infrastructure. The government's announcement acknowledges these factors and promises significant investments in technology, expanded judicial resources, and structural reforms to address them.

Support for measures like AI-powered disclosure tools and enhanced preparatory hearings further align with evidence-based solutions targeting the real causes of delay. As a result, the Committee is calling for the removal of the proposal for judge-only trials in fraud cases.