England: Criminal bar urges caution over routine filming of Crown Court trials

The incoming chair of the Criminal Bar Association (CBA) in England and Wales has warned that the routine filming of Crown Court proceedings would require “extremely sensitive and vigilant consideration”.

Chris Henley, currently the association’s vice-chair, made the comments to the Law Society Gazette following a public intervention by the Victims’ Commissioner.

Victims’ Commissioner Baroness Newlove had told the Sunday Telegraph that televising trials could “change the behaviours of some of the key participants, such as aggressive barristers or defendants who show contempt for the justice process”.

Mr Henley said the CBA welcomed “all carefully managed initiatives” to improve transparency and public understanding of the criminal justice system.

However, he added: “Nothing must compromise the interests of justice, the primacy of a fair trial, and respecting the interests of vulnerable witnesses, witnesses generally and defendants.

“These matters would need extremely sensitive and vigilant consideration if it was ultimately proposed to televise, live or recorded, proceedings in the Crown Court on a more routine basis.”

The Transparency Project, a charity campaigning to make family law clearer, added that it was “not sure of the evidence base for [the] assertion” that there is a problem with “aggressive barristers”, and it is “entirely unclear how the proposal to bring in cameras would solve that problem”.

Filming is currently allowed in appeal and sentencing hearings in England and Wales, and proceedings in the UK Supreme Court have been broadcast live since October 2014.