Your editorial (30 January) says that boosting the sentencing power of magistrates is the wrong way to reduce the backlog of criminal cases. I agree. There is a more effective solution, and that is to restrict the number of “either way” cases that defendants can elect to have heard in the crown court.
There are three categories of criminal offence. One (eg assault, criminal damage up to £5,000) can only be tried in magistrates courts. One (eg murder, firearms offences) can only be tried in crown courts. In the middle are “either way” cases (eg theft, burglary), which magistrates can accept, but defendants have the right to elect to have heard in crown courts – and often do.
This creates anomalies. Three magistrates will hear a case where £4,000 worth of criminal damage to property is alleged, but a charge of stealing a £6 chicken goes to jury trial in a crown court if the defendant wishes, and it will be many months, if not years, before the case is heard.
Extending magistrates’ sentencing powers will have little impact on the crown court backlog. Recategorising the less serious “either way” offences so that they can only be heard in magistrates courts would immediately relieve the workload in crown courts.
Nicky Ottaway
Bletchingley, Surrey
• It’s pleasing to see the Guardian shine a light on the problems plaguing our criminal justice system. The £135m-a-year funding increase recommended in the independent review of criminal legal aid should be implemented immediately. Otherwise, we fear that criminal defence solicitors will leave at ever faster rates, seriously compromising the government’s ability to clear the huge backlog in the criminal courts.
Hundreds of criminal defence firms have shut their doors over the past decade. Our research shows that the solicitors who remain are ageing, and some areas risk being left with insufficient criminal duty solicitors to answer the call when someone needs representing in a police station.
You can pour all the money you like into policing and prosecution, but without a healthy criminal defence profession, British justice will cease to exist.
I Stephanie Boyce
President, Law Society of England and Wales
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