Linsey Farnsworth

Q You said that your preference would be for two magistrates and a judge to sit together, and I understand your views on that. There are already examples in our criminal justice s…

Q On the practicalities of jury trials, you talked about the time savings of having judge-only trials over jury trials. I want to talk about other potential savings in terms of th…

Having been a Crown prosecutor for 21 years, I find it very disturbing that you take that view.

Q Thank you. Tom Guest, one of the directors at the CPS, recently gave evidence to the Justice Committee. He said: “Our view is that we have gone far beyond the point where piecem…

Q Indeed. I think part of the CPS’s role is to look at the impact of the court backlog on the system as a whole, and jury trials are a part of that. A big part of the work of the…

Q I serve on the Justice Committee and am a former Crown prosecutor, so I have an interest in the Crown prosecutions aspect of this. On 17 March, we heard evidence on the Justice…

I want to declare that, as Crown prosecutor, I was assigned to the team that looked at the Insulate Britain campaign and reviewed the evidence as to whether charges should be brou…

Q My last question is about the allocation process. In previous debates, we have heard concern that the judge’s allocation decision about whether it is the Crown court bench divis…

Q So potentially there would be less repetitive listing of the same trial over and over again through those issues. Clement Goldstone: You would have one trial listed once, hopefu…

Is it not the case that magistrates courts can be more agile in terms of court listing and picking up cases, like we heard from the Canadian—

I am getting to my point; I am very conscious of time. It is fair to say that the CPS has a good overview of the system. Caroline Goodwin: Yes.

Q It is fair to say that the CPS’s breadth of experience across the criminal justice system is unparalleled, given that it takes cases through the system, from advising the police…