Jurors will be allowed to hear previous convictions

The white Paper Justice for All, announced yesterday by Home Secretary, David Blunkett, is the latest of 17 pieces of criminal justice legislation put forward by the Government since its election in 1997.

The 181-page document is billed as a "coherent, long-term strategy to modernise the criminal justice system from end to end".

Broken down into nine chapters, the White Paper is said to be based on "a single clear priority" ­ "to rebalance the criminal justice system in favour of the victim and the community so as to reduce crime and bring more offenders to justice".

Double jeopardy

The erosion of the rule that prevents a person being tried more than once for the same offence is much greater than had been anticipated. A report by the Law Commission had said the rule should be removed in cases of murder, if new evidence were uncovered.

But the White Paper says: "We believe that there are other cases where a retrial would be justified if there were compelling fresh evidence giving a clear indication of guilt." It says the rule should not apply for "very serious offences such as rape, manslaughter and armed robbery". Reinvestigation of a case would have to be approved by the Director of Public Prosecutions and a decision to quash an acquittal and order a retrial taken by the Court of Appeal. The power to reinvestigate cases would be retrospective.

Mr Blunkett said that "with the development of DNA and forensic science it would be entirely wrong" to rule out evidence that shows conclusively a person had committed a crime.

Previous convictions

The paper contains wide-ranging powers for judges to allow juries to hear details of both previous convictions and acquittals. The document says: "It should be for the judge to decide whether previous convictions are sufficiently relevant to the case, bearing in mind the prejudicial effect, to be heard by the jury and for the jury to decide what weight should be given to that information."

The paper gives a series of examples of hypothetical cases, saying that a judge ought to be able to tell a jury that a doctor facing a charge of indecentlyassaulting a patient had been previously cleared of two similar charges. Mr Blunkett said a jury hearing a domestic violence case should have the right to know that a defendant had committed previous similar offences.

Trial by jury

A raft of reforms will reduce the number of trials by jury. Judges will be allowed to sit alone in "serious and complex fraud trials" (probably about 20 a year) and possibly also in organised crime cases.

Judges will also be able to dismiss a jury and hear a case alone if they believe the jury has been intimidated. Defendants will also be able to opt for judge-only trials.

The sentencing powers of magistrates will be doubled from six months to a year and may be further extended to 18 months, reducing further the number of cases heard in the Crown Courts.

Mr Blunkett stressed that he was not removing the right to opt for a jury trial.

Youth courts

The paper also attempts to reduce the number of cases involving young offenders going before juries in Crown Courts. It proposes having about 1,000 juvenile cases a year, currently heard before a jury, tried instead by a judge sitting in a youth court with two experienced lay magistrates in support.

Fines for lawyers

Mr Blunkett is exasperated by what he sees as spoiling tactics used by defence lawyers. He said: "We will not allow defendants or their representatives to play the system by building in delay." The paper proposes introducing fines for defendants and their lawyers who cause unnecessary hold-ups. "As well as the power [for courts] to penalise lawyers by making them pay costs wasted as a result of their errors or omissions, we will also consider whether other forms of penalties, could be applied."

Sentence discounts

Most defendants (95 per cent in magistrates' courts and 74 per cent in Crown Courts) plead guilty. But the paper says that "many in the system believe that defendants' delayed guilty pleas are a tactic employed in the hope witnesses will lose patience and decide not to testify". It proposes the introduction of a plea-bargaining system whereby defendants are told in advance what sentence they will receive if they plead guilty.

Defence statements

To "ensure a fairer balance between prosecution and defence", legislation will be introduced to allow juries to hear the defendant's pre-trial defence statement and "draw inferences" from any discrepancies between what was said then and the case being presented by the defence at the trial.

Hearsay evidence

The White Paper says the rule preventing automatic admissibility of evidence that cannot be provided in person is "ripe for change". It states: "We believe ... if there is a good reason for the original maker not to be able to give the evidence personally (for example, through illness or death) or where records have been properly compiled by businesses, then the evidence should automatically go in, rather than its admissibility be judged."

Indeterminate sentences

Measures designed to protect the public from dangerous violent and sexual offenders will lead to far more prisoners serving longer sentences than merited by the offence for which they have been convicted. "We believe that such offenders should remain in custody until their risks are considered manageable in the community," the White Paper says. "For this reason, we propose to develop an indeterminate sentence for sexual and violent offenders who have been assessed and considered dangerous."

Police bail powers

In an effort to reduce reoffending on bail, police are to be given powers to impose restrictions on the movements of suspects, even if they have not been charged. Lord Falconer of Thoroton, a Home Office minister, said these would include placing suspects under curfew and "doorstepping" them to ensure they were at a required address at a specified time.

Victims of mentally disordered offenders

The Government will legislate to "entitle victims of mentally disordered offenders to the same information about release ... as victims of other crimes". This has been called the "George Harrison clause" ­ a reference to the release from custody, without consulting the victim's family, of the man who attacked the former Beatle.

Custody plus

This proposal is at the heart of the Government's plans to reduce the record jail population. But the Home Secretary admitted yesterday he did not have the budget to fund the programme, that allows for offenders to spend half their sentence in custody and the rest in community-based punishments. The Government will rely heavily on another scheme, Custody Minus, a form of suspended sentence involving community-based penalties.

Domestic violence

The paper points out that domestic violence accounts for nearly a quarter of all violent crime and that a typical victim will be assaulted 35 times before reporting the problem to police. The paper proposes providing anonymity to domestic violence victims ­ similar to that given to people who are sexually attacked ­ to encourage them to report cases.