Vulnerable and elderly people are at risk of being unfairly penalised and convicted thanks to a controversial courts system for low-level crimes, a senior barrister has said.
Kirsty Brimelow KC, chair of the Criminal Bar Association, told the BBC Radio 4 Today programme that magistrates were sometimes denied key information about defendants who are prosecuted through the Single Justice Procedure (SJP).
The process, introduced in 2015 to streamline prosecutions of crimes such as fare evasion and speeding, allows a single magistrate to deal with cases behind-closed-doors based on written evidence alone.
But Ms Brimelow said: “My view is justice is not being served.”
The vast majority of SJP defendants are not legally represented, most do not enter a plea at all, and the paperwork they are sent setting out their alleged crime does not offer the option of arguing the prosecution is not in the public interest.
“Lots of people who end up with notices (of prosecution) have different difficulties — disabilities, through age, or it can be vulnerabilities quite simply through a chaotic lifestyle,” she said.
“So you end up with incomplete information before a magistrate, who is not a lawyer, processing cases and the end result is often very large fines.”
The Evening Standard has highlighted a litany of cases going through the SJP system which raise concerns over fairness. Last week, an 84-year-old pensioner was prosecuted by the DVLA and fined £1,876 for not paying £93 in road tax, despite telling the court he believed at the time he had obeyed the law by keeping the vehicle off the road.
In another case, a 78-year-old woman with schizophrenia and dementia was convicted of not having vehicle insurance. Her daughter had written to say the offence happened when she had fallen and was admitted to hospital, but she was issued with a fine nonetheless.
Critics have branded SJP “conveyor belt justice” where “not much thought goes into the particular circumstances of a defendant”.
