COMMONS AMENDMENT (Hansard, 19 May 1970)

§ THE LORD CHANCELLOR

My Lords, I beg to move that this House doth agree with the Commons in their Amendment No. 5. The purpose of this Amendment is to allow the trial of Old Bailey cases anywhere in Greater London and not only in the City. The Administration of Justice Act 1964 provides that the Court may sit at any place in the City and may sit in more than one division simultaneously. The "City" is defined in Section 38(1) of the Act as the City of London. At the moment we are very short of courts at the Old Bailey, the Central Criminal Court, and that is one of the reasons why, unhappily, that Court is getting into arrears.

There are usually some empty courts in the Law Courts, in the Strand, but because of this provision we have not been able to start cases there. What we have had to do is to start them at the Old Bailey, and then everybody comes up to the Strand. There was a recent episode reported in the Press when the juries in two cases, as well as the judges, counsel and the solicitors concerned, all had to return to the Old Bailey from the Royal Courts of Justice because one of the jurors had been unable to serve. Therefore, I have been giving consideration to this matter and the only way to cure it is by this Amendment, the effect of which is that any such case can be tried wholly at the Law Courts in the Strand instead of having to be called on at the Central Criminal Court and then, if anything goes wrong in the middle of the trial, it being necessary for everybody to have to go all the way back again.

VISCOUNT COLVILLE OF CULROSS

My Lords, I think this is a most important Amendment. I noted particularly that in a recent debate in another place, on the Beeching Report, the question of the under-use of spare courts in the Royal Courts of Justice in the Strand was raised. Some interesting statistics were then given by the right honourable and learned gentleman the Attorney-General which showed that there was a considerable number of days when there were empty courts available. I had no idea that there was this technical reason why they could not be used, or why it was difficult to use them. This idea of a "travelling circus" going backwards and forwards up Fleet Street is almost beyond belief. I am glad that the Government have found a way of curing it, and I welcome this Amendment.