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Fraud (Trials without a Jury) Bill

My hon. Friend mentioned a point that I made. I am sorry to say that I do not know the discipline in which he practised the law. If he had practised in crime, he would know that when one deals with criminals, one deals mainly with men—and some women—who are sometimes of great violence and great desperation. Such men will do almost anything to obtain an acquittal and are sometimes capable of deploying large sums of money. When we discussed the provisions of the 2003 Act that allowed for judge-only trials in cases in which juries were nobbled, we were told that that activity was frequent and dangerous. If there is a judge-only system, attempts will undoubtedly be made to bribe, bully and cajole judges. Such attempts are not part of our system. I am not saying for one moment that the vast majority of judges will be open to that, but they will be exposed to it. One of the huge benefits of our system is that they are not exposed to such activity. If a judge sitting on his own acquits someone and it looks to the press as though there is a substantial body of evidence, suspicion is bound to grow. At the moment, that is wholly unknown in our system, but there are judges in our system who might be corruptible. If my hon. Friend does not understand that point, he flies in the face of judicial—