Page 2 - Transform Justice News Today

A Government campaign to recruit more working class and ethnic minority magistrates has failed to break the white, middle class and middle-aged hold on the job, official figures show.

Exclusive: Data analysis shows people severely penalised for relatively minor infractions of coronavirus laws

Concern that cases are no longer being scrutinised

Paul Carberry was convicted in 1979, when aged 16

The Guardian understands that senior managers have been instructing that prosecutions for assaults should be a last resort

‘The Met needs to explain this disproportionality or reform,’ campaigner says

MoJ data show doubling in proportion of cases being decided in secret by a single magistrate

Push for faster justice to clear backlog means thousands of people are being convicted or fined ‘without any checks and balances’

Police revealed that of the 124,626 fixed penalty notices issued in England and Wales between March 2020 and February 27 this year, 51,353 were not paid within 28 days.

Thousands of Britons face the prospect of having coronavirus lockdown violations remaining on criminal background checks for the next decade.