New measures allowing non-legal Crown Prosecution Service staff to conduct trials at magistrates’ courts were this week condemned as dumbing down the service by a leading criminal defence practitioner.

Section 55 of the Criminal Justice and Immigration Act 2008, which came into force this week, allows associate prosecutors – formerly known as designated case workers – to conduct trials of non-imprisonable offences as well as non-contested committal proceedings.

Rodney Warren, director of the Criminal Law Solicitors Association, said defence practitioners were concerned about the de-skilling of prosecutors in the magistrates’ court. ‘We should be ensuring justice economically, not economising on justice,’ he said.

However, practitioners welcomed reforms to the public protection sentencing legislation, which allow judges to pass indeterminate sentences for dangerous offenders.

Offences must now merit at least two years of actual ­custodial time before a public protection sentence can be imposed. The changes also remove the presumption that an offender is dangerous where they have a previous conviction for a violent or sexual offence and allow for greater judicial discretion in sentencing such offenders.

Ian Kelcey, chairman of the Law Society’s Criminal Law ­Committee, welcomed the changes and said: ‘It shows how much knee-jerk reaction there has been in the past to these offenders, when the ­reality is that the prisons can’t cope.’

Reforms at a glance

  • Seriousness threshold before public protection sentences can be imposed
  • Restriction of the grounds for refusal of bail in imprisonable summary offences
  • Extension of the powers of non-legal staff to present summary-only trials for non-imprisonable offences
  • Rebuttable presumption that trials or sentencing in magistrates’ courts will go ahead if the defendant fails to attend without good cause