More jurors getting call ups as courts widen Covid opening
More juries are being inducted this week under strict social distancing conditions as more courts widen operations to ease the backlog of cases.
Caernarfon Crown Court in north Wales is due to swear in a jury tomorrow for the first time since March.
Shrewsbury, Stafford, Wolverhampton and Birmingham are not yet running trials.
Jurors are being called upon at an increasing number of justice centres, including Warwick Crown Court which was among a small number to resume trials under a pilot programme last month.
Trial judge Andrew Potter, who was sitting at Warwick, said: "It is no exaggeration that the trial that I presided over was only successfully completed due to the preparatory work performed by our court staff and the resident judge."
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President of the Family Division, Sir Andrew McFarlane, said it will be a long road ahead for the Family Court system in England and Wales as it tackles coronavirus challenges.
Sir Andrew said: "We have reached a juncture in the Family Court’s journey through the Covid-19 crisis when it is both possible and necessary to take stock and to consider the road ahead.
"It is possible to do this because, in contrast to the early weeks, there is now a bedrock of experience of remote working. This experience, both positive and negative, was in large part described and teased out in the enormously valuable and impressive report published by the Nuffield Family Justice Observatory on remote hearings in the Family Court in early May 2020.
"It is necessary to look at the road ahead because any earlier rose-tinted thoughts that ‘this will all be over by July’ have sadly evaporated and it is now clear that, whilst the situation of total lockdown may be gradually relaxed, the need for stringent social distancing restrictions is likely to remain for many months to come."
