Caroline Goodwin QC

After observing a mock remote jury trial, Caroline Goodwin QC concluded that “the technology is not there to deliver a safe and fair trial”, The Times reports.

She also warned that remote trials do not provide a “controlled and managed” environment similar to a courtroom, leading to “far too many opportunities for outside influences to exist, which would be completely unknown to the judge”.

The higher civil courts in England and Wales have moved towards remote hearings to avoid a major backlog of cases after the coronavirus pandemic comes to an end, but criminal jury trials have simply been postponed.

Ms Goodwin said: “There can be no substitute for open and efficient justice through a live trial in one physical space with jurors, barristers, a judge, witnesses and defendants all able to engage fully and solemnly with the full range of verbal, non-verbal and visual cues.

“Remote hearings involving screen-only access strikes at the heart of the right to fair trial under Article 6 of the European Convention on Human Rights, which is put into play if defendants do not understand the court process or are not actively engaged.”

The COVID-19 pandemic “should not be used as an excuse to rush into the great unknown where the risks are simply not worth taking” and scrap a “tried-and-tested system that has worked for at least the past 800 years”, she added.