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Fraud (Trials without a Jury) Bill

I do not know whether judge-led trials will lead to an increase in the number of types of trials that lead to convictions—we shall have to wait and see how that evolves—but I think that we may well see more people convicted, albeit not for that reason. There is no contradiction there. The reason is that the full culpability of a case can be looked into, and some people who might have dropped off as defendants because of the complexity of the case will no longer need to be dropped off. They can be put before the judge. We may see further convictions as a result of that. It is also the case that a broader range of evidence can be put before the judge—probably more charges and more on the indictment—so we are looking at dealing with the full culpability of a case in a single trial, rather than severing it, dropping people off the end and having merely sample counts.