We are in February 2026, and the criminal justice system in England and Wales is teetering on the edge. The Crown Court backlog has exploded: over 79,600 cases pending at the end of 2025, with official projections reaching 100,000 by 2028.
Average time from charge to trial exceeds 500 days, and some cases scheduled today risk not reaching court until 2030 or later. This is not merely a statistic – it is an open wound: victims waiting years to be heard, defendants living under a suspended sentence of uncertainty, families shattered by delay.
Justice Secretary David Lammy launched an ambitious package at the end of 2025, drawing on Sir Brian Leveson’s Independent Review of Criminal Courts (Part I, July 2025, with recent updates): drastically limiting jury trials to serious offences (murder, rape, cases with likely sentence over 3 years), moving the rest – thefts, minor assaults, protest blockades – to magistrates or “swift courts” presided over by a single judge.
The declared aim: cut the backlog by 20%, inspired by Canadian models. Yet independent experts (Institute for Government, January 2026) estimate real savings at under 2% of total Crown Court time. Why? Because most delays stem not from juries, but from insufficient funded sitting days, shortage of judges and support staff, and buildings that can no longer cope.
Sir Brian Leveson himself recently warned that the system is “on the brink of collapse” and that the government’s proposals go beyond his original recommendations (he favoured a bench division with a judge plus two magistrates, not a single judge)
Leaders from the Bar Council, Criminal Bar Association and Law Society are aligned: juries are not the culprit. Riel Karmy-Jones KC (Chair, Criminal Bar Association) puts it bluntly: “Juries don’t cause delays – what we need is investment.”
Mark Evans (President, Law Society) adds that delays arise from “a crisis of demand outstripping supply and chronic underinvestment… trial by jury is not an administrative inconvenience. It is a democratic safeguard.”
Dr I Stephanie Boyce CBE FKC (former Law Society President) speaks of leadership that “unites not divides” and emphasises that “a jury is more than a procedural mechanism. It is a democratic safeguard… the law should never be something done to people, the law is an instrument of change.”
Riel Karmy-Jones KC and Andrew Thomas KC (Criminal Bar Association) described the Leveson report as “a full MOT test report on the criminal justice system” – a complete diagnostic that shows the system needs deep repairs, not superficial cuts.
Joshua Rozenberg, senior legal journalist and respected commentator (formerly BBC and The Guardian, now on Substack A Lawyer Writes), offers a balanced yet critical perspective: he acknowledges the backlog crisis but stresses that limiting juries is “one of the most radical and revolutionary changes in English legal history”, lacking clear electoral mandate in Labour’s manifesto and without wide public consultation.
In his January 2026 piece in The Free Press, “Is Britain Giving Up on Jury Trials?”, Rozenberg argues that the logic “try more cases without juries and they will be heard more quickly” seems reasonable but risks unintended consequences (higher conviction rates, greater pressure on overcrowded prisons, loss of the jury’s role as a democratic safeguard).
On Substack (February 2026), he notes the government is pushing to introduce the legislation “next month”, yet the reforms exceed Leveson’s original recommendations and risk damaging public confidence in justice.
Links: https://rozenberg.substack.com/p/jury-reforms-in-weeks and https://www.thefp.com/p/is-britain-giving-up-on-jury-trials
This is where my deepest concern lies: AI in policing. Under PACE 1984, police already run tools on Microsoft Azure (National Police Capabilities Environment, launched 2025) and the new Police.
AI centre (£115 million announced January 2026). These promise to free millions of police hours through automated filtering of digital evidence – CCTV, phones, emails, everything. It sounds good: efficiency, speed, backlog reduction.
But proprietary algorithms decide what is “relevant”. If settings exclude a crucial fragment – for instance the peaceful context of a protest – the file reaches prosecutors, defence and judge incomplete.
In “swift courts” without juries, where everything moves fast, that filter becomes decisive.
You can challenge via UK GDPR Art. 22 (right to human oversight, explanation, contestation of automated decisions), but in practice transparency remains limited. Biases (racial in facial recognition, hallucinations in generative tools) can lead to miscarriages of justice.
Protests are hit hardest: Public Order Act laws from 2022–2025 classify simple blockades (Just Stop Oil style) as minor offences – fast-tracked without juries.
AI filtering can erase moral context from evidence, turning non-violent civil disobedience into mere public-order breaches, stripped of empathy for the cause.
Linear Budget Breakdown – Police, Courts, Lawyers, Jury Costs, Total
- Police (England & Wales, total funding 2025-26): ~£19.9–20 billion
- Annual IT/digital spend: ~£2 billion (mostly legacy maintenance)
- Specific AI/digital (Police.AI + NPCE/Azure): £115 million (new, January 2026)
- HMCTS (courts and tribunals, including Crown Court): ~£2.3–2.5 billion (resource)
- Capital/digital transformation (Azure migrations etc.): hundreds of millions annually
- Legal aid (lawyers – criminal focus): ~£1.1–1.3 billion (2025-26, with recent uplifts)
- Criminal higher (Crown Court, barristers dominant): ~£764–850 million
- Criminal lower (solicitors dominant): ~£323–400 million
- Specific jury/trial costs in Crown Court:
- Average cost per sitting day: ~£3,200–3,800 (adjusted 2025-26 estimates)
- No separate total “just for juries” (included in trial cost)
- Estimated savings from jury limitation: small, under 10% of total Crown Court time
- Total MoJ relevant to criminal justice: ~£9–11 billion (out of MoJ total £13.8 billion, with HMPPS prisons taking ~£7 billion)
Real Audit: What Actually Reaches LawyersHere is the core: the billions exist on paper, but they are diluted.Barristers (Crown Court, criminal higher)
- Receive ~£300–380 million annually from total criminal legal aid.
- ~3,000–4,000 barristers active on schemes.
- Gross average: £75,000–£130,000/year from legal aid.
- Net after tax, chambers rent (10–15%), clerks fees (10–15%), expenses: £30,000–£60,000/year for most junior/mid-level.
- Real fees: brief fee £1,000–£4,000; refreshers £500–£1,500/day. Many handle cracked trials (low fees).
- Reality: real-terms fees down ~10–15% in recent years (adjusted for 26.5% inflation since 2021). Many avoid legal aid.
Solicitors (police station, magistrates, part Crown)
- Receive ~£600–800 million annually.
- ~8,000–10,000 active (duty solicitors down 26% since 2017).
- Gross average: £60,000–£100,000/year from criminal legal aid.
- Net after firm overheads, tax: £25,000–£45,000/year for many full-time.
- Examples: police station fixed fee £320; escape threshold £650; magistrates +10%.
- Many quit – duty schemes at risk of collapse.
Recent uplifts (~24% since CLAIR 2021) are welcome but insufficient against 25–30 years of stagnation and cuts (LASPO 2012 reduced scope and rates).
Leaders are clear: they do not demand billions more, they demand sustainability – so the money reaches those who do the work.
The Inevitable Metamorphosis
Everything is changing. AI absorbs research, drafting, evidence analysis. By end-2026, UK lawyers could unlock £2.4 billion in productivity gains.
By 2027, 70% of firms will treat AI as daily standard. Roles become hybrid: 40% time on tools, the rest on strategy, ethics, human negotiation. Judges become AI overseers.
Risks: bias, hallucinations, dependence on Big Tech.
Opportunities: more accessible justice – but only with strict ethical rules and investment in human skills.
Final thought: we stand at a crossroads. We can choose speed and efficiency at the cost of humanity, or we can invest seriously in people and transparency to preserve the democratic essence.
A recent example that perfectly illustrates this division is the official correspondence sent on 13 February 2026 by the Justice Committee to the Deputy Prime Minister and Lord Chancellor David Lammy, regarding reforms to the criminal courts. The document urgently seeks clarifications on the modelling of time savings, the impact on the prison population, magistrate retention, and the transparency of the reforms – including where technology (including AI) is proposed as a solution. The discussion remains confined to a restricted institutional circuit, far from the eyes of the general public who interact with generalist AI as an everyday tool.
Link to the document: Correspondence to The Rt Hon David Lammy MP – Criminal Courts Reform, 13 February 2026.
Disclaimer
This material is an independent journalistic analysis, based solely on public sources, official statements, and recent reports (February 2026). It does not represent the official opinion of any institution, nor does it aim to interfere in judicial processes or offend the individuals cited, institutions, or the government. Any interpretation or inadvertent error is the responsibility of the author. We encourage you to check the original sources for full context.
By
Robert Williams
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