The Independent Review of the Criminal Courts
The Leveson Review, consisting of 388 pages, references the word ‘youth’ only 28 times, many of which are appearances in the footnotes. Nonetheless, the recommendations, which are radical and widespread, would potentially fall to impact children and young people in a number of ways.
Details
The main proposals in the review are:
- Increasing the use of out of court resolutions (‘OOCRs’)
- Magistrates’ sentencing powers increase permanently to 12 months imprisonment
- Credit for a guilty plea be increased to 40% across the board
- The automatic right to appeal against conviction or sentence in the Magistrates’ Court be removed
- A new Crown Court Bench Division (‘CCBD’) is established to deal with many either way offences currently dealt with by jury
- A judge determines the method of trial once a defendant has elected (either trial by jury or trial by CCBD[1])
On the face of it, the review does not propose any changes to the current operation of the Youth Courts and the presumption remains that children and young people will generally be tried in the Youth Court, as a specialist court.
However, there are of course times when a child’s case is sent to the Crown Court, to be tried alongside an adult or because the offending is deemed too serious for the Youth Court. It is not clear how the new proposals regarding mode of trial would apply to cases of adults tried jointly with youths. Presumably if a child was sent to be tried alongside an adult, that would be a significant consideration in deciding whether the case was appropriate to be tried by CCBD or jury. If a judge allocated the case to the CCBD, would the tribunal have to comprise of two adequately trained youth court magistrates, and (if it was a DJ), one accredited in conducting youth court cases (in which case it is essentially the youth court recomposed – in what circumstances, then, could a child have a jury trial)? Or would the presumption be, as it is in cases tried in the Crown Court currently, that a judge is capable of trying the case of a child without any specialist accreditation? The review is silent on these points.
The composition of the CCBD, requiring two magistrates in each hearing, could also result in more cases in the youth court being tried by two rather than three justices, or delayed, given the national shortage of magistrates, with only 27% of Magistrates responding to the review’s survey regarding desire and availability to sit additional days.
On the other hand, the suggestion that OOCRs be used in a wider range of circumstances, while not specifically aimed at young people, is a potential positive of the review, particularly given OOCRs have been the focus of other guidance released in 2025 in relation to children and young people. The review highlights the decline in the use of OOCRs (p85) and recommends that police forces review, retroactively, cases that may be suitable for OOCRs as well as considering them in new cases, and also that the Deferred Prosecution Scheme should be introduced legislatively, which could result in less unnecessary criminalisation of children at key points in their lives.
The increase in credit would also have a positive impact on those young people at risk of receiving DTOs, and those pleading to grave crimes, such as murder and manslaughter. In particular in relation to grave crimes, the increase could result in fewer committals for sentence, and in turn a reduction in the time a child spends in custody.
Commentary
Cases in the youth court do not significantly contribute to the current backlog of cases and as such the review is largely silent on the matter. Nonetheless, children remain some of the most vulnerable court-users in society and their cases have the potential to change the trajectory of their futures.
While the review focusses on measures that can be taken to reduce the Crown Court backlog in the adult estate, it must be acknowledged that this cannot be done without some impact on children and young people, though that impact may be small and unintended. Given the review does not directly address how the changes would come to bear on youth cases, it might be inferred that no change is anticipated by Sir Brian Leveson and that caveats would be put in place for youths, for example to retain the certainty of jury trial when/if committed to the Crown Court.
Written by
Violet Smart, Doughty Street Chambers
[1] The tribunal in the CCBD will comprise of a DJ, Recorder, Circuit Judge or Deputy High Court Judge accompanied by two magistrates.