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Fraud (Trials without a Jury) Bill

Yes, I entirely agree with my hon. Friend, who makes another very important point. Juries should not be treated like sheep, shepherded back and forth from the jury room into the jury box. I have seen enough examples in my time of juries not being well treated, usually by the judiciary, which is regrettable. The truth is that juries are partners in this process, and my experience is that if they are treated like grown-ups, they respond very well to the responsibility placed on them. Of course, one reason why jury trial is so beneficial is precisely that juries are independent. At the risk of repeating issues of principle—they seem, however, to need repetition in this House—criminal trials of a serious nature go to juries precisely because they are the community. When they do not consider themselves capable of returning a guilty verdict, we should remember that they are, after all, not ““the state”” in some abstract term, but the ones who might be affected by future criminality. So there can be no better test of guilt or innocence than placing that question in the hands of those within the community who might be the victims of such criminality. However, the route that the Solicitor-General is going down plainly raises the question of the development of the state against the individual.