Speaking at Bromley Magistrates’ Court in South London, Minister of State for Police and Criminal Justice Damian Green said that in the future every magistrates’ court in England and Wales would operate completely digitally, with increased use of remote video links and written evidence and legal submissions being stored securely centrally and accessed by magistrates and legal teams on digital devices, using Wi-Fi connections. Police officers will be able to collect evidence at the scenes of crimes using mobile devices and begin building case files on the beat.
Minister Green commented that the Government announced last month that courts across England and Wales would be upgraded using new funding of £75m a year. This is in addition to £44m already provided for the provision of new IT programmes. The funding will include ensuring all criminal courts can operate completely digitally by July 2016.
“I want to see a Criminal Justice System where information is captured once by a police officer responding to a crime and then flows through the system to the court stage without duplication or reworking. Many forces are already using digital technology like body-worn video, which can be used to collect compelling evidence at the scene of crimes.” Minister Green commented
“Our Digital Business Model provides us for the first time with a full picture of what a transformed digital Criminal Justice System could look like when all of our reform programmes deliver their goals” Minister Green added

Minister Green explained that the Digital Business Model includes plans for:

• Police officers to be equipped with the tools they need to be able to start capturing evidence digitally at the scene of a crime, taking statements and uploading digital case information using mobile devices without needing to return to the police station.
• Police to be able to capture witness and victims statements electronically on their mobile device or bodyworn video at the scene of the crime where available while the events are fresh in victim’s or witness’ minds.
• A digital system which will mean the police contact the Crown Prosecution Service (CPS) directly for a charging decision. CPS staff will have access to the case information in order to make a charging decision and then process the case. Case information will no longer need to be repeatedly sent to different agencies or professional users either electronically or in paper form.
• Defendants in custody to appear in court via prison to court video links for pre-trial hearings, where appropriate, which will remove transport costs and speed-up the justice process.
• Criminal prosecutors and defence lawyers in magistrates’ courts to work digitally, presenting cases from mobile digital devices in court instead of bundles of paper files.
• Case information to be viewed digitally by magistrates on digital devices.