The Lord Chancellor Chris Grayling has been brought in on today’s (13 May) landmark appeal challenging a Crown Court decision to stay a high value publicly funded serious fraud trial, after the defendants failed to find any barrister prepared to represent them on reduced legal aid rates.
In the case of R v Crawley and Others, which was brought by the Financial Conduct Authority (FCA) following the Operation Cotton investigation, His Honour Judge Leonard QC, sitting in Southwark Crown Court, found on 1 May that while the case was ready for trial and the court had set aside the necessary time to hear the case, ‘none of the five defendants can receive a fair trial unrepresented. It follows that none of the five defendants can be tried now.’
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