Highlights of the Independent Review of the Criminal Courts

Sir Brian Leveson will be hosting a talk on the Highlights of the Independent Review of the Criminal Courts, hosted at the University of Liverpool.

In 2025, the Lord Chancellor commissioned Former President of the Queen’s Bench Division, Sir Brian Leveson, to carry out an independent review into the criminal courts, in light of the significant backlogs that have developed in recent years in the UK criminal justice system. Specifically, the review considered two key themes:
Reform: how the criminal courts could be reformed to ensure cases are dealt with proportionately, in light of the current pressures on the Crown Court; 
Efficiency: how they could operate as efficiently as possible, to include consideration of the processes of partner agencies where they impact the criminal courts.

The Review concluded in 2026 and reports addressing the two themes have been delivered to the Lord Chancellor and made available to the public. The reports provide a deep analysis of the scale and nature of the problems that have contributed to the backlog and set out a comprehensive set of recommendations to tackle these problems. In this talk, Sir Brian Leveson will provide reflections on the review, its reports and recommendations to deliver a reformed, efficient criminal court system.

Bio
Sir Brian Leveson is a senior British judge best known for chairing the Leveson Inquiry into the ethics and practices of the UK press following the phone-hacking scandal. Educated at Merton College, Oxford, he was called to the Bar in 1970, became a Queen’s Counsel in 1986, and was appointed a High Court judge in 2000. He later served as President of the Queen’s Bench Division from 2013 to 2019, earning a reputation for his clear judgments and significant influence on media regulation and judicial standards in the UK.