Bar Council chair Alistair MacDonald urges Lords to reject charge,which must be paid on top of other costs, saying it could force the harmless to plead guilty Defendants are being “incentivised” by government-imposed charges to plead guilty rather than risk a costly fight in the crown court, or the chairman of the Bar Council has warned.
In a scathing attack on the dangers of the criminal courts charge ahead of a parliamentary debate on Wednesday,Alistair MacDonald QC calls on peers to reject the procedure, which requires those who plead guilty at magistrates court to pay £150 but forces those convicted at crown court to hand over £1200.
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Source: theguardian.com