My Authors
Read all threads
The lies begin.

The backlog in the criminal courts has *NOT* been caused by Covid-19. It has been exacerbated, but was already nearly 40,000 cases in the Crown Court pre-Covid.

The delays are due to the govt’s refusal to resource the justice system.

Don’t let them lie to you.
The government chose to repeatedly cut "court sitting days" - causing a huge backlog of trials.

The Justice Secretary and Lord Chief Justice are now both openly endorsing abolishing jury trials, to "solve" the "problem" that the government deliberately engineered.
We have warned about this for YEARS. Til we were blue in the face. The government kept cutting, and the press largely ignored it, favouring "soft sentence" nonsense peddled by the Home Office.

Now we face a genuine threat to one of the fundaments of our constitution.
If you are a young black man falsely accused by the police of assault, you currently have the right to trial by a jury of your peers.

The government want to replace that with trial by a single (likely white and middle-aged) judge and two (likely white and over-60) magistrates.
There are arguments against the way we do jury trial (I make some in my book). But, for better or worse, it is accepted as the gold standard of criminal justice. It should not be removed because the government has slashed the justice system and is looking for a quick cheap fix.
I'm going to stop, because this could end up as a 30-tweet thread I'm so gosh darn angry. We all suspected this was coming, but it doesn't make it any easier to swallow. The sheer vandalism of this sham of a government on our institutions is beyond belief. Aaaarrrrrrrggghhhhhhhh.
Missing some Tweet in this thread? You can try to force a refresh.

Keep Current with The Secret Barrister

Profile picture

Stay in touch and get notified when new unrolls are available from this author!

Read all threads

This Thread may be Removed Anytime!

Twitter may remove this content at anytime, convert it as a PDF, save and print for later use!

Try unrolling a thread yourself!

how to unroll video

1) Follow Thread Reader App on Twitter so you can easily mention us!

2) Go to a Twitter thread (series of Tweets by the same owner) and mention us with a keyword "unroll" @threadreaderapp unroll

You can practice here first or read more on our help page!

Follow Us on Twitter!

Did Thread Reader help you today?

Support us! We are indie developers!


This site is made by just two indie developers on a laptop doing marketing, support and development! Read more about the story.

Become a Premium Member ($3.00/month or $30.00/year) and get exclusive features!

Become Premium

Too expensive? Make a small donation by buying us coffee ($5) or help with server cost ($10)

Donate via Paypal Become our Patreon

Thank you for your support!