A criminal barrister has demolished Justice Secretary David Lammy on social media for his terrible ability to understand the law and its impacts on ordinary people.
This intervention came after Lammy posted a propaganda clip from the Ministry of Justice (MoJ) which compares the incomparable. Apparently, the MoJ believe that having a jury of peers decide a defendant’s guilt when sentences are less than three years is akin to demanding to see an NHS consultant after scraping a knee.
This has been condemned by criminal barristers on X, highlighting just how out of touch our political elite are. Some have said that Lammy’s insistence on curbing our right to a fair trial and attempts to minimise its impact should see the Justice Secretary resign.
The Secret Barrister certainly didn’t mince his words:
Joanna is politer than I am going to be.
For the Justice Secretary – a former barrister – to suggest that being wrongly accused of a crime and imprisoned for three years is just like “scraping your knee”, should be a resignation matter.@DavidLammy owes the public an apology. https://t.co/pN7Rq59TjO
— The Secret Barrister
(@BarristerSecret) March 8, 2026
Lammy needs to listen: the right to a fair trial includes right to a trial by jury
Once again, the UK government is shown to be woefully inept with cabinet ministers unable to even exercise their supposed specialised knowledge. Lammy, a qualified barrister and first black Briton to study at Harvard, seems incapable, or unwilling, to be honest about the likely impact of his penny-pinching policy to remove jury trials in some criminal cases. This will be applied to ‘either-way’ offences which would see a sentence lesser than three years.
Our own Alex/Rose Cocker wrote in December about the open letter signed by over 100 lawyers slamming the decision to withdraw jury trials through Lammy’s Crown Court Bench Division (CCBD). We wrote:
The letter listed many compelling reasons that the CCBD would be unworkable. It would require significant recruitment of magistrates – a judge and two lay magistrates for most offences. However, the magistracy has been in decline, and there’s serious doubt over whether enough could actually be recruited at all. As such, magistrates and support staff would likely be drawn from the pool staffing Crown Court and magistrates’ courts.
Diverting judges from sitting Crown Court jury trials would not reduce the backlog. Likewise, if there’s money to pay new judges, it should be going to the Crown Court as it currently exists. Similarly, the CCBD need deliberation rooms, office space, waiting rooms, cells and docks. If there’s money for these new facilities, it should go towards reducing the backlog of the existing Crown Court.
However, this new video which compares someone scraping a knee and insisting on a consultant’s attention to our right under the ECHR to a trial by jury is tasteless and out of touch. It also shows that Lammy has refused to heed the warnings from other legal professionals. This freedom exists to protect citizens against state overreach, ensuring that citizens are judged with the oversight of a jury of their peers maintaining transparency and accountability.
Lammy is a qualified lawyer, so he should know better.
Apples and oranges
The offending video from the Ministry of Justice can be seen here:
It’s time to set the facts straight
. pic.twitter.com/sQ27gzps41
— Ministry of Justice (@MoJGovUK) March 8, 2026
Another criminal barrister has also politely highlighted the obvious – a scraped knee is not the same as ending up in prison for up to three years:
Your local friendly criminal barrister here!
I need you to know that anything up to a three year prison sentence imposed without a jury trial is really not the same thing as scraping your knee without seeing a consultant. pic.twitter.com/zwIvUhFfLu
— Joanna Hardy-Susskind (@Joanna__Hardy) March 8, 2026
Joanna Hardy-Susskind elaborated:
A three year prison sentence will destroy your life, ruin your job, almost certainly wreck your mental health, it will impact your relationships, your children, your parents, your prospects of work, having a home, your good name – and you can’t stick a plaster on any of that.
They use an example of stealing a bottle of whisky deliberately, you see. Because it sounds lightweight & silly. But either way offences with sentences less than 3 years will include some sexual assaults, some ABHs, some s20 GBHs & some frauds.
It’s not about whisky.
Or knees.
Hardy-Susskind finished by pointing out the obvious:
I’m not sure which bit is worse. The comparison to hospital, to triage or the gutting of the presumption of innocence.
The trial is there to determine *if* someone has stolen. But the hospital, hopefully, isn’t staring at a bloody knee & asking *if* it’s hurt.
The Secret Barrister further reminded just why we have the right to a trial by jury, and just who it will hurt when taken away:
Every time you read one of these disingenuous – no, strike that – outrageously dishonest propaganda pieces from @DavidLammy and @sarahsackman, remember that the freedoms they wish to curtail are designed to protect people wrongly accused of criminal offences.
And the barrister reminds ‘it could be you’ next:
Every time they distract you with absurd and misleading claims about abolishing juries being necessary to get “offenders” and protect “victims”, what they are trying to hide is that innocent people end up in criminal courts.
It could be you.
It is your rights they are attacking
David and Sarah want to give *you* – the wrongly accused – a lower quality of justice whenever you face up to *three years of your life* in prison.
And they don’t even have the decency to make their case on the evidence.
Just bluster, distraction and, I’m afraid to say, lies.
This account on X possibly highlights just where Lammy’s Freudian slip comes in where he refers to those affected as ‘offenders’. So much for innocent until proven guilty:
What nonsense.
First, they are defendants, not offenders, as they are innocent until proven guilty (a schoolboy error for the Justice Minister)
Second, a defendant electing a Crown Court trial is a legal right, and cannot be dismissed as “choosing to delay”.
The REAL facts are… https://t.co/8GLqUgTg0w
— Daniel ShenSmith (BlackBeltBarrister) (@dshensmith) March 8, 2026
Even Tory leader Kemi Badenoch has spoken up against curbing this necessary civil protection:
Labour’s Justice Minister has already given the game away.
This is not an emergency measure. Labour would do it anyway.
Trial by jury is a cornerstone of British justice. It should not be hollowed out by Ministers who think our ancient liberties are an inconvenience. https://t.co/vJPVweYAUO pic.twitter.com/oJNruEbcyn
— Kemi Badenoch (@KemiBadenoch) March 8, 2026
Labour MP Karl Turner confronted Lammy on how life-destroying these sentences can be and highlights those who always seem to evade justice:
If you nicked a bottle of whiskey, Dave. Being convicted for that when you have a good defence would ruin your life. Why doesn’t it ruin the lives of others accused and wrongly convicted of dishonesty. SUB-POSTMASTERS?
https://t.co/iisygtJMrT
— Karl Turner MP (@KarlTurnerMP) March 8, 2026
Shame on David Lammy
Once again, those in power expect the British public to accept a decline in our quality of life, food, opportunity, and healthcare while our costs continue to rise. Now David Lammy wants to save money by stripping protections from those at the bottom of the ladder. After all, ordinary people do not have access to expensive lawyers and can often be pressured into extremely difficult situations.
All the while this government refuses to look to the wealthiest to cough up fair taxes against their obscene riches. Let alone the fact that it is well known that inequality increases the likelihood of both violent and property crime, so ordinary people will be punished for conditions beyond their control.
Introducing these changes at a time when cases of sexual assault are increasing is also deeply concerning. As the barristers highlighted, the proposal would apply to any case where the potential sentence is less than three years. If prisons become overcrowded, could judges face pressure to impose non-custodial sentences instead? Without the oversight provided by juries, that risk for women and girls becomes far more likely.
We need jury trials: the accused need to be judged by their peers not the elite. We cannot allow the risk for politics, prejudice, and discrimination to gain more ground in our legal system.
Featured image via the Canary
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