In a bold move to address the imbalance in the UK’s criminal justice system, Labour MP Natalie Fleet has called on her colleagues to support a series of reforms that aim to prioritise the needs of victims over those of criminals.
Fleet, the MP for Bolsover, has spoken out about her own experience of being groomed and raped as a teenager, and the subsequent “hell” of navigating the justice system. She argues that the current system is weighted in favour of offenders, who are able to “game the system” and delay their imprisonment, often continuing to commit crimes in the meantime.
Citing the example of drug dealers who choose lengthy jury trials to prolong the legal process, Fleet has thrown her weight behind proposals by David Lammy, the Shadow Justice Secretary, to introduce judge-only trials for certain offences. This, she believes, would help to clear the backlog of rape and sexual assault cases, which have long been plagued by delays.
“In the community and the council estate that I come from, I know a lot of women who have been raped and I know drug dealers,” Fleet said. “And I say this as somebody who has been raped, I would not report being raped under this current system because the hell of being raped is only made worse by the hell of going through this system.”
The reforms, which have already faced significant pushback from the legal profession and some Labour MPs, would see judge-only trials introduced for complex fraud cases, as well as magistrates-only hearings for offences with a maximum sentence of two years or less.
Fleet has accused the “barrister class and lawyer lobby” of not doing enough to support the victims of crime, and has called on her colleagues to prioritise the needs of survivors over the concerns of the legal establishment.
“I’m not angry on behalf of the barrister class and the lawyer lobby. I am angry on behalf of the victims,” she said. “You can shout and you can scream and you can brief and you can threaten a byelection. Or you can support the government on behalf of victims.”
The reforms, which are being pushed forward by Lammy, face an uphill battle in the House of Lords, where the Tory and Liberal Democrat frontbenches are expected to oppose the changes. However, with the backing of survivors like Fleet, the government may be able to garner the support it needs to rebalance the scales of justice in favour of those who have suffered the most.