Peter Neyroud: Justice has become a melodramatic game

'More and more criminals are getting away with it, while victims' needs are ignored'

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When the Metropolitan Commissioner, Sir John Stevens, expressed his frustration with the effectiveness of justice, he was speaking for all police officers. The bottom line is that justice is not being done, thanks to the arcane rules and bureaucracy of our criminal trial process. The public knows this, the legal profession knows this and the Government know this.

More and more criminals are getting away with it, while victims' needs are ignored, despite the hard work and commitment of officers to ensure justice is done. The long-term effect has been a downward spiral in public confidence, to the extent that less than half the public believe the criminal justice system is effective in bringing offenders to justice and only 26 per cent believe it meets the needs of victims.

The criminal trial process is in desperate need of reform. This is shown in the Government's document The Way Ahead, which proposes to overhaul the archaic system that has been muddled together over the centuries and whose rituals and methods satisfy no one. Lord Justice Auld's Criminal Courts Review, published last year, made a number of good recommendations which could resolve many of the issues, but the recommendations do not go far enough. For the criminal trial to be a real search for truth – instead of the game it has become – the following must happen:

First, courts should be designed and run to suit the needs of victims and witnesses, including separate waiting areas and better use of technology to allow the giving of evidence remotely.

Second, there must be a fair exchange of information between the prosecution and the defence before the trial, compared to the current system in which substantive information often comes solely from the prosecution until the day in court.

Third, better case management is needed to allow for speedier trials which focus on the facts of the case and prevent the unnecessary calling of witnesses.

Fourth, there should be a right of appeal by the prosecution in serious cases where rulings have led to the premature termination of the case.

And finally, the self-governing Bar and Law Society codes of practice should be reviewed to ensure that lawyers have clear guidance on standards of professional conduct.

Under the current rules, everyone loses – society, because too many criminals are getting away with it, and police officers, because their work on a case can be dismissed on a technicality. Even criminals suffer, because the system fails to make them face up to the consequences of their actions and may even encourage a higher level of criminality.

Despite many attempts over the last 30 years, including three Royal Commissions, there has been no success in changing the culture of the courtroom from a melodramatic procedural game. This is in part due to every development being focused on giving the advantage to the defendant. The balance can be restored between the rights of the defendant and the rights of the victim, without impeding the right to a fair trial and the principle that a defendant is innocent until proven guilty.

Lord Woolf, who is now the Lord Chief Justice, has been effective in turning the civil system into a search for truth by making the system less adversarial, putting controls over disclosure, and ensuring that cases are managed effectively by the court. The same must be possible in the criminal court.

On the subject of defence disclosure, I am not saying the accused should be put into the position of incriminating himself, but that the defence should at least give an account of the facts they will dispute prior to trial and details of the witnesses they are going to call, instead of going on "fishing trips" during the trial itself.

LJ Auld himself said in his report: "A defendant's right of silence is not a right to conceal in advance of trial the issues he (the defence practitioner) is going to take at it. Its purpose is to protect the innocent from wrongly incriminating themselves, not to enable the guilty, by fouling up the criminal process, to make it as procedurally difficult as possible for the prosecution to prove their guilt regardless of cost and disruption to others involved." I agree entirely, but his recommendation needed to go further.

Some members of the legal profession have accused us of blaming everything on defence lawyers and ignoring the need for the police to get their own house in order. This is not the case. The chief police officers' Search For Truth Campaign recognises the fact that our own service must embrace reform to ensure society gets the justice it deserves. This includes respecting the rights of victims and witnesses, and ensuring professional standards in investigations and disclosure.

Neither is the campaign an attack on defence lawyers. We have said all along that no individual or professional group is responsible for the problems of the criminal trial; it is the system itself which is at fault, a system so flawed that it provides loopholes which no one can be blamed for exploiting.

What we need is to work together with the other members of the criminal justice system to ensure that trials become a search for truth that centres on an analysis of the facts, and does not delay, muddy the waters or harass the participants – especially those members of the public doing their duty as citizens.

The writer is Chief Constable of Thames Valley Police