AN experienced East Lancashire lawyer has urged the government not to ‘put a price on justice’ with plans to axe 70,000 trial by jury cases.

Andrew Church Taylor, a criminal law solicitor for Farleys, said justice reform proposals to axe juries on ‘traible either way’ offences such as theft, assault, burglary and drugs offences to save £30million were not ‘common sense’.

It is designed to speed up the justice system and clear backlogs from crown courts.

But Mr Church Taylor said: “If late guilty pleas cause a problem then perhaps better and more effective measures ought to be looked at, case management or greater incentives for a timely or earlier guilty plea might be re-addressed.

“If a crown court is over three times more expensive each day to operate than a magistrates court then perhaps again we ought to be told why rather than simply take away something which ought to be sacrosanct”.

Mr Church-Taylor continued: “The right to decide mode of trial ought to remain and, whatever the potential saving, there can be no price put on justice and the individual’s freedom to choose.

“It is not the first time that the matter has raised its head and undoubtedly it won’t be the last.

"But hopefully common sense will prevail and the issues which may lead to financial savings within the criminal justice system will be properly identified rather than simply looking again at what is rapidly becoming a perennial review of such a fundamental right of our legal system”.