David Corker quoted in NLJ on Economic Crime Court

Partner David Corker has been quoted in New Law Journal on the Crown Prosecution Service (CPS) launching an economic crime strategy, including the first economic crime court, and the use of more Nightingale courts for fraud cases, recovering the proceeds of crime and seeking compensation for victims where possible, and supporting more virtual hearings for economic crime cases to help reduce the backlog.

“Such a specialist court would rupture the system for the trial of all serious criminal cases which has existed since the Crown Court was invented in the early 1970s. Crown Courts have since then been the sole judicial tribunal for the trial of all prosecutions brought on an indictment.

David said similar proposals had been made before but had foundered mainly because of opposition from the judiciary who argued crimes should be treated the same. He said “two-tier justice would make it appear that there are ordinary criminals and economic crime ones which is not only wrong but also socially divisive.”

“It is a pity that the CPS did not boldly propose amending the requirement that all trials on indictment must be determined by a jury. That it shied away from permitting an accused to choose whether to be tried by judge-alone or a jury as in the situation for example in Canada, New Zealand and most of Australia,” he said.

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