Fraud (Trials without a Jury) Bill

I hope that my hon. Friend has drawn the hon. and learned |Member for Medway back towards us with that intervention. It was a serious concern to my hon. Friend and I in Committee that the Solicitor-General, whom we like and respect, veered towards saying that his proposal would increase conviction rates. We could certainly quote phrases back at him. However, a conviction—a finding of guilt—does not necessarily mean a just result. There are still too many people unjustly convicted by our system. I looked back through the annual reports of the Serious Fraud Office, which has existed since 1998 principally to deal with such cases, and one of the arguments that it has never used—I stand to be corrected—is that non-jury trials should be introduced because they would increase conviction rates. The SFO makes many arguments in its annual reports on how to improve the process, how more cases could be brought to court and how conviction rates could be improved, but they are not to do with the difference between jury trials and non-jury trials. One instance in which the interests of justice might be better served by a non-jury trial than a jury trial might be if such publicity had been given to a case or the defendants—we have had some examples recently, although not in serious fraud cases. Before any charges have been laid, people have appeared in the press and on the radio and television as the likely defendants. One could argue that the interests of justice would dictate that the members of a jury would not be able to disregard what they had heard, read or seen to enable them to reach a correct judgment. My experience of the courts is that in every case where that is an issue—perhaps there has been widespread national or regional publicity—the judge has gone out of his or her way to make it clear that the members of the jury have to put what they have heard or read about the case out their minds. My understanding is that they appreciate the need to do that. So I dismiss the argument that non-jury trials are necessary in such cases.