Calls have grown for the Single Justice Procedure (SJP) to be reformed after tens of thousands of rail fare evasion prosecutions brought under the controversial process were declared void.
Passengers accused of fare evasion prosecuted and fined by rail companies including Northern and Greater Anglia are set to have their convictions thrown out after being prosecuted under the SJP despite the operators not being permitted to do so, following a judge’s ruling on Thursday.
Tom Franklin, the chief executive of the Magistrates’ Association, said following the judgment the SJP should be reformed and called for hearings under the procedure to be “observable by accredited journalists”.
He said: “This ruling has big implications for tens of thousands of people, and there are serious questions that the prosecuting authorities – in this case, the train companies – need to answer as to how this was allowed to happen.
“This supports our call for reform of the SJP. For some time now, the Magistrates’ Association has been calling for it to be more open and transparent, consistent and fairer, particularly for more vulnerable defendants such as those who are elderly or infirm.
“While many aspects of the SJP work well, we would like to see measures put in place to protect the most vulnerable defendants.
“Our recommendations include making it a requirement that prosecutors see all pleas and mitigations from defendants before the cases are heard by the magistrate, and reviewing and improving the training that magistrates receive before they can sit on SJP cases.
“Boosting transparency is needed by publishing more data on the SJP, such as how many defendants plead guilty, how many make no pleas, and how many ask to come to court, nationally and broken down by region.
“The Government should also make provision for SJP sittings to be observable by accredited journalists.”
The SJP allows magistrates to decide on minor offences, such as using a television without a licence or driving without car insurance, without defendants going to court.
Last year, 787,403 criminal cases were dealt with by magistrates’ courts under the SJP, following its introduction in 2015.
Defendants can opt for a full court hearing before their case is considered by a magistrate under the procedure, and can enter mitigation along with a guilty plea to be decided by the person deciding their case.
Pleas and any mitigation can be reviewed, and in some cases reconsidered, by prosecutors, but this is a judicial decision. Sentences passed under the SJP are the same as in any other hearing.
If a defendant is not aware of the proceedings, they can make a declaration to that effect, which voids the proceedings and allows them to start again.
But a spotlight has recently been shone on the process, including by the London Evening Standard reporter Tristan Kirk, who said it delivered “conveyor belt” justice.
Mr Kirk was awarded the Private Eye Paul Foot Award for Investigative and Campaigning Journalism in June, with the magazine stating the SJP makes justice “impossible for people without the means or wherewithal to challenge the system”.
It added the process created a “conveyor belt system that has removed humanity and fairness from the law”, with concerns also raised that the system prevents mitigation in individual cases from being taken into account.
The Magistrates’ Association said in March that “there are concerns” that cases are being brought before magistrates without prosecutors, such as the DVLA or TV Licensing, reading mitigations, and that many of its members are “uncomfortable” with the system.
It also reported a “significant proportion” of magistrates said they do not always have sufficient time to “properly consider each case”.
The same month, then justice secretary Alex Chalk told Parliament that although he believed the SJP “works well”, there were issues surrounding transparency which needed “recalibrating”.
The Government has since said it is already consulting on ways to improve the process and its transparency.
Rail companies were permitted to use the SJP in 2016 to privately prosecute fare evaders, but many of those were brought under the Regulation of Railways Act 1889, which is not allowed under the procedure.
Sarah Cook, whose case was one of six “test cases” declared void by Chief Magistrate Paul Goldspring on Thursday, was fined £475 after being prosecuted by Northern Rail under the SJP, accused of fare evasion in November 2022.
The 42-year-old, from Barnsley, South Yorkshire, was fined £20 after travelling from Wombwell to Barnsley without a ticket after the ticket machine would not accept her card for the fare.
As she had not been on a train in decades, she believed she could buy a ticket once on the train.
She contested the fine on the same day and claimed she waited a year for a response before being told she had been prosecuted under the SJP and fined.
She said: “It seemed insane to me that any verdict can be done without you being there, and not because I had opted not to turn up, but because the system is that you don’t go, that you don’t attend, that all you do is fill out some paperwork.
“I own a shop. If somebody comes in and says afterwards ‘My child picked this up, I’m sorry’, and brings it back, I don’t phone the police and convict them for theft. You fix it there and then. That is the common sense response, and I feel like with this, common sense was not prevailing.
“It’s a win that it has been overturned, but it feels like the system is very flawed in the first place.
“To find out that there were so many people who had gone through the same thing was insane to me. It just seemed ridiculous that not a thousand people, but tens of thousands of people, had gone through exactly the same situation. It proves how flawed the system was.”