A SENIOR BRIT ATTACKS BRITAIN'S CRAZY LEGAL SYSTEM

The liberal legal establishment has been condemned by the Director of Public Prosecutions for its patronising attitude towards the public and victims of crime. Ken Macdonald, QC, head of the Crown Prosecution Service, said that elitist attitudes had helped to break the bond of trust between the public and the criminal justice system. In an extraordinary warning, he said that the country would enter dangerous territory if the public felt that justice was not being delivered by the courts.

Mr Macdonald also called for a move away from the position held by many lawyers that only the defendants' rights matter. Greater emphasis should be given to the rights of victims and witnesses, he said. "Few sounds are less attractive than well-educated lawyers patronising vulnerable victims of crime with inflexible platitudes."

The speech has been made public as new figures show that while 80 per cent of people think that the justice system is fair to the accused, only 36 per cent are confident that it meets the needs of victims. It also comes after a series of high-profile killings by criminals released from jail on parole.

Mr Macdonald said that in some cases the victims of crime had been treated as "pariahs" by the system and witnesses were handled in an appalling manner. The DPP added: "The perception that no one looks out for them and that it's only defendants whose rights are taken seriously is not wildly wrong." He said that there had to be fairness for both victims of crime and suspects: "The view that only defendants' rights matter, still quite commonly held by many criminal lawyers, appears to me to be a fundamentalist position that we should move away from. "My own view is that liberal commentators need to start by acknowledging that the public have a point. The service given to victims and witnesses has traditionally been appalling."

The speech is Mr Macdonald's most controversial since he became director three years ago. Made in May at a seminar organised by the Centre for Crime and Justice Studies at King's College London, and passed to The Times, it will provide useful ammunition for the Government, which announced plans to rebalance the criminal justice system in favour of the law-abiding majority last month.

Mr Macdonald said that the old-fashioned idea that thecriminal justice system sits above the public and consists of principles and practices beyond popular influence or argument was "elitist and obscurantist".

David Blunkett, the former Home Secretary, had seen the need for a democratic element to criminal justice which, while not slipping into "vigilanteeism, serves to temper an increasingly dangerous disconnect between our people as a whole and the traditional judicial and practitioner establishment", Mr Macdonald said. He added: "If people, including victims, feel they cannot secure justice through the courts, we are entering dangerous territory".

The speech, which was given to an audience of lawyers and criminologists, will provoke anger among many lawyers, particularly those representing suspects, and it will raise suspicions that Mr Macdonald wishes to water down traditional legal safeguards for defendants. But in it he insisted that the principles of jury trial, presumption of innocence, a right to appeal and full disclosure of the state's case were all non-negotiable.

Last night Richard Garside, acting director of the Centre for Crime and Justice Studies, said: "It is important that we make a distinction between a legal system treating people with respect and a defendant whose guilt has still to be proved."

John Cooper, a leading criminal law barrister, said: "The fundamental of a trial in the criminal justice system is the analysis of facts and evidence to decide if the prosecution have proved their case. "It is not, and never should be, an arena where victims primarily undertake a cathartic exercise for the allegation that is tested at the trial."

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WHAT THE BRITISH PEOPLE THINK ABOUT THEIR COURTS

The Director of Public Prosecutions has given warning that the legal system will stray into "dangerous territory" if people feel justice cannot be achieved through the courts. However, the widespread perception is that the law and the legal profession have already lost the confidence of victims and the general public.

The British Crime Survey 2005-06 reflects this view: 80 per cent of respondents thought the system was fair to the accused, but only 36 per cent were confident that it met the needs of victims. The widely held opinion is that criminals receive soft sentences, paedophiles are pitied, foreign terrorists are given vast sums in legal aid and illegal immigrants who commit crimes are never deported. Ordinary people who stand up for themselves and their families are either punished or become victims. Perhaps worst of all, the rights of such victims are ignored.

Last month a judge was heavily criticised after sentencing a paedophile, who had repeatedly sexually assaulted an 18-month-old baby boy, to four years in jail. Judge Simon Hammond, sitting at Leicester Crown Court, said that Christopher Downes, 24, needed help for his "undoubted problems". Michele Elliott, of the charity Kidscape, said: "There is something wrong when a man could admit to sexually abusing an 18-month-old baby regularly and be out of prison in two years."

The concern of campaigners is outstripped by the anger of the families of victims. Last month the family of Natalie Glasgow described as laughable the sentence imposed on Mark Hambleton, an electrician whose van hit and killed the 17-year-old girl as she walked home from a party. Hambleton was given a 100-hour community service order and banned from driving for a year. The dead girl's father, Paul, said: "The law says it doesn't matter whether you hit a teenage girl or a lamppost in terms of the charge of failing to report an accident. That can't be right. It must be changed."

The apparent downgrading of victims' rights, compared with those of the defendant, also causes anger. The defence of Kamel Bourgass, the Algerian terrorist trained by al-Qaeda who is serving life for murder and conspiring to make ricin toxins, cost the public purse 996,934 pounds in legal aid. The family of DC Stephen Oake, who was stabbed to death by Bourgass in 2003, received only 13,000 pounds from the Criminal Injuries Compensation Authority.

Judges reply that the legislative straitjacket is the cause of many of the current problems. The case of Craig Sweeney attracted huge attention. Sweeney was jailed for life by Cardiff Crown Court for abducting and indecently assaulting a three-year-old girl but Judge John Griffith Williams cut his minimum tariff in recognition of his guilty plea. It meant that Sweeney could be considered for parole in five years.

As The Times reported last month, John Reid, the Home Secretary, said that this was unduly lenient. Vera Baird, QC, the Constitutional Affairs Minister, had to apologise after saying that the judge was wrong. The judiciary rallied round the judge, saying he had followed the law to the letter.

Both Victim Support and Nacro, the crime reduction charity, say that perceived soft sentencing and the treatment of victims are separate issues. Paul Cavadino, chief executive of Nacro, said: "The sentencing in this country is harsher than most other Western Europe countries. And we have the highest prison population in Western Europe, both in absolute numbers and as a proportion of the population. "I don't accept that you can measure how supportive a criminal justice system is to victims by the sentences given out. "It is not in the interests of victims to pass sentences that don't reduce future offences."

A spokesman for Victim Support said: "Victims want a system whereby we deal with criminals properly and we give out punishments that are an effective deterrent. Our experience is that even if victims are happy with the result in court, the happiness is short-lived because their lives have still been altered."

Liz Jones said that she lost her faith in the criminal justice system when a teenager who smashed her cheekbone avoided a jail sentence last month. Dexter Hungwa, 16, attacked Ms Jones, a headmistress, because she had asked him to shut a door. Ms Jones, 51, said: "At first I was frightened because I thought he could turn up at any time. The experience was horrendous but when I found out that he had been given a referral order, I was really, really angry."

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