Campaigners claim the Justice Secretary’s proposals will mean defendants who use free speech as a defence for ‘offensive’ language are less likely to be acquitted.
Research by the Free Speech Union (FSU) found defendants justifying their actions on the basis of free speech were almost twice as likely to be found not guilty in a crown court, where juries determine verdicts, as they were in magistrates’ courts, where there are no juries.
The research followed high-profile ‘hate speech’ cases such as that of Jamie Michael, a former Royal Marine. A jury took just 17 minutes to acquit him of stirring up racial hatred with a Facebook post urging people to exercise their democratic rights over illegal immigration following the Southport murders.
Lord Young, the Director of the FSU, said his organisation would be campaigning against Lammy’s plans. “Trial by jury is a bulwark of British liberty and if people charged with speech offences are denied that right, they’re more likely to be convicted,” he said.
In an attempt to tackle a record backlog of 80,000 cases, Lammy will on Tuesday use a Commons statement to set out the Government’s ‘once in a generation’ plans to scrap the right to jury trial for defendants facing offences likely to result in prison sentences of under five years.
Under the proposals, only defendants facing charges carrying a possible jail term of more than five years, such as murder, rape and other serious sexual offences, terrorism, manslaughter, GBH and possession of firearms, will be entitled to jury trials....<<<Read More>>>....