'Very uncomfortable': Former judge reacts to David Lammy's jury plan

Jury trials are to be scrapped for all but the most serious crimes under a bombshell plan, which lawyers say will destroy faith in justice and our democracy. The Deputy Prime Minister faced a furious backlash on Tuesday after a leaked memo revealed the biggest shake-up in the criminal justice system for 800 years as Labour proposes to end jury trials for most offences, apart from murder, rape or manslaughter cases. In an extraordinary U-turn after years of heralding the importance of jury trials, David Lammy announced in a briefing to all government departments that 'there is no right to a jury trial' in Britain and judges alone should handle the bulk of cases to cut the backlog in courts across the country.