Reporting Courts Martial and the Service Justice System

Four venues, only three of which you can sit in

The service justice system is not one court. Most reporters who write about it get into trouble at the first hurdle, by treating "court martial" as a generic label for anything military and disciplinary. It is not: the Court Martial is a specific, permanent, statutory court, and there are three others alongside it.

All three courts are administered by the Military Court Service, which sits in the Ministry of Defence — not HMCTS. That single fact explains most of the practical differences in this guide: none of the HMCTS media protocols, listing services or court-document rules you rely on elsewhere apply here.

Who can be tried — and how ordinary crime gets in

The Court Martial has, in the judiciary's words, "global jurisdiction over all Service personnel and civilians subject to Service discipline". Service personnel are the obvious category. The second is narrower than people assume, and worth getting right before you write that a civilian "was court-martialled".

Schedule 15 to the Armed Forces Act 2006 sets out the categories of "civilians subject to service discipline". They include a person in one of His Majesty's ships afloat or aircraft in flight; a person lawfully held in service custody; Crown servants working in support of the forces in a designated area; employees of specified international military organisations in a country outside the British Islands; persons designated by the Defence Council when outside the British Islands; and people residing or staying with service personnel in a designated area. Paragraph 11 carves out non-UK nationals when they are in their own country or country of ordinary residence. The pattern is clear: this is overwhelmingly about the overseas footprint of the armed forces, not about civilians in the UK.

Ordinary criminal offences enter through section 42, headed "Criminal conduct": a person subject to service law, or a civilian subject to service discipline, commits an offence under that section if they do any act that is punishable by the law of England and Wales, or that would be so punishable if done in England or Wales. So a rape charge at Bulford is technically a section 42 charge with sexual assault or rape as the corresponding England and Wales offence — which matters enormously when you come to work out which reporting restrictions bite. Note too that section 209 provides for detention of offenders aged under 18 convicted by the Court Martial of a section 42 offence: young defendants do appear.

Inside the courtroom: the judge advocate and the board

The bench is civilian. The Judge Advocate General is the judicial head of the service courts, working with Assistant Judge Advocates General, and the judiciary is explicit that "All the judges are civilians, appointed through the independent Judicial Appointments Commission from the ranks of experienced barristers or solicitors in the same way as Circuit Judges." The people in uniform are the lay members.

• Composition: Section 155(1) of the Armed Forces Act 2006: the Court Martial consists of a judge advocate and "three or, in the case of proceedings of a prescribed description, six other persons (‘lay members’)". Section 155(2A) lets a judge advocate direct that a panel that would be three is instead four. "Prescribed" means prescribed by Court Martial rules (s.155(9)).
• When six sit: Rule 29 of the Armed Forces (Court Martial) Rules 2009: "For proceedings to which this rule applies, the number of lay members shall be six." It applies to the serious end — offences listed in Schedule 2 to the Act, and offences where the sentence could exceed two years’ imprisonment (or detention under s.209 for those under 18). The six-member requirement took effect on 1 January 2023.
• Who sits: The judiciary describes the board as "between three and six commissioned officers, Warrant Officers and Chief Petty Officer/Staff Sergeant/Flight Sergeant, depending on the seriousness of the case". Section 155 as amended by the Armed Forces Act 2021 brought OR-7 ranks into eligibility alongside officers and warrant officers.
• The verdict: Section 160(A1): the finding is determined by votes of the members other than the judge advocate — the judge does not vote on guilt — and requires a qualified majority of two of three, three of four, four of five, or five of six. There is no unanimity requirement and no minimum deliberation period equivalent to a jury’s.
• The sentence: Section 160(1): sentence is determined by a majority of the votes of the members of the court — this time including the judge advocate. Section 160(4): "in the case of an equality of votes on the sentence, the judge advocate has a casting vote." Serving personnel therefore help fix the sentence, which has no civilian analogue.
• Deliberation: Rule 20 requires deliberation in private: while the court deliberates on finding, no other person may be present; on sentence and certain other matters, only a person in attendance for instruction may be present.

Write those differences down before your first trial. A 2-1 conviction is lawful in the Court Martial and would be a hung jury in the Crown Court. The judge helping to decide the sentence, with a casting vote, is a genuine structural difference from civilian practice — and one that repeatedly surfaces in the argument about whether the service system is the right place for serious sexual offences.

Open court — and the listings problem

Start from the law. Section 158 of the Armed Forces Act 2006: "Subject to any provision made by Court Martial rules, the Court Martial must sit in open court." The Ministry of Defence's own guidance is blunter: "All hearings are open to the public in exactly the same way as civilian courts, unless otherwise directed by the presiding judge." There is no accreditation scheme, no press-card requirement and no application to make. You walk in.

The problem is knowing what to walk in to. Military courts are absent from HMCTS's Find a Court or Tribunal service, which covers "courts and tribunals in England and Wales, and some non-devolved tribunals in Scotland". Instead the Ministry of Defence publishes a PDF as transparency data — Military court centres court listings— first published in January 2012 and updated continuously. Each listing "covers the next one or two week assize period" and is "published on the internet by the last working day in advance of the assize period". The same lists run on digital signage in the reception areas of both court centres.

Read one before you plan a trip, because of what it does and does not contain. The columns are: date, time, a court-type code, a proceedings code, the defendant's service number, rank and name, and their ship, unit or station. There is no offence column. The codes you need are printed at the foot of each page: CM is Court Martial, SCC is Service Civilian Court, SAC is Summary Appeal; PTPH is Plea Trial and Preparation Hearing, PH is Preliminary Hearing and FCMH is Further Case Management Hearing. The list also warns that "All proceedings are subject to change" and that "Pre-trial hearings are routinely conducted with parties attending remotely" — so a PTPH entry is usually not something to drive to Wiltshire for.

Because there is no offence column, the list alone will never tell you whether a case is worth covering. The listing carries direct telephone numbers for the court officer at each centre for exactly this reason, and the guidance tells you to use them for the most up-to-date position. Ringing the court officer is not a nice-to-have on this beat; it is the beat.

The results data — and the gap you cannot bridge

Alongside the listings, the Ministry of Defence publishes Court martial results from the military court centres as CSV transparency data, running from 2010 and now updated regularly; the January to December 2025 file was published on 23 March 2026. The Military Court Service says service court results are published on a monthly basis.

The fields are: MCS reference, rank, service, unit, trial court, date of completion, final charge or charges at trial or sentence, finding, and overall sentence. For data journalism this is unusually good material — every completed case, with the charge, the verdict and the sentence, back fifteen years, for two named court centres.

But note the asymmetry, and do not try to defeat it. The listings carry names but no offences. The results carry offences and outcomes but no names. They are deliberately not joinable, and inferring "the guardsman convicted in that CSV row must be the guardsman on the listing" is exactly the kind of reconstruction that produces a defamation claim. If you want to name someone, you get the name from the hearing you attended, or from the court officer, or from the Service Prosecuting Authority — not from cross-referencing two datasets.

Reporting restrictions: same principles, different plumbing

The restrictions you know from the Crown Court mostly apply — but each arrives by its own route, and the route matters when you are arguing with a judge advocate or writing a letter to the court.

• Sexual offence complainant anonymity: Section 2(4) of the Sexual Offences (Amendment) Act 1992: "This Act applies to an offence under section 42 of the Armed Forces Act 2006 if the corresponding offence under the law of England and Wales (within the meaning given by that section) is an offence within a paragraph of subsection (1) above." So the lifetime anonymity runs in exactly the same way — but you must first identify the corresponding civilian offence behind the s.42 charge.
• Under-18s concerned in proceedings: Section 45 of the Youth Justice and Criminal Evidence Act 1999 applies to "(a) any criminal proceedings in any court (other than a service court) in England and Wales or Northern Ireland; and (b) any proceedings (whether in the United Kingdom or elsewhere) in any service court." Service courts are covered by their own limb of the section, and the geographical reach is worldwide.
• Contempt of court: The strict liability rule reaches service proceedings: paragraph 1A of Schedule 1 to the Contempt of Court Act 1981 provides that "the reference to an offence includes a service offence within the meaning of the Armed Forces Act 2006", and s.19 defines "court" as including any tribunal or body exercising the judicial power of the State. Treat a pending court martial with the same discipline as a pending Crown Court trial — there is a board that can be prejudiced.
• Sitting in camera: Rule 152 of the Armed Forces (Court Martial) Rules 2009: a judge advocate may order that proceedings, or part of them, be held in camera where satisfied the order is necessary or expedient in the interests of the administration of justice — including where disclosure might endanger national security. When such an order is made, a copy must be prominently displayed at the place appointed for the proceedings, and the proceedings cannot begin for at least 24 hours, which is your window to object.
• Withholding a name from the public: Rule 153: "The court may give leave for any name or other matter given in evidence in proceedings to be withheld from the public." This is the service-court analogue of the anonymity-in-court power that s.11 of the Contempt of Court Act 1981 then supports — and, as in a civilian court, the fact that a name was withheld is not the same as a prohibition on you publishing it from another source. Ask the court exactly what has been ordered.
• Appealing an order: Rule 154 provides for appeals in relation to orders under rules 152 and 153, and the 24-hour delay before in camera proceedings begin exists so that route can be used. The general framework and tactics are in our guide to challenging restrictions — the principles are identical, the forum is not.

For the wider framework see our reporting restrictions overview and guide to challenging restrictions.

Who prosecutes, and where appeals go

The Service Prosecuting Authority is, in its own description, "the principal prosecuting authority within the Service Justice System and is responsible for the prosecution of all service offences before the Service Courts". It was formed in 2009 from the three single-service prosecuting authorities. It is led by the Director of Service Prosecutions, appointed under section 364 of the Armed Forces Act 2006 — a person with a ten-year general qualification or equivalent standing — who operates under the general superintendence of the Attorney General. The SPA applies the Code for Crown Prosecutors, and it is based at RAF Northolt with a published external enquiries mailbox. Treat it as you would a CPS press office: it is your route to charge detail and case-outcome confirmation.

Appeals from the Court Martial go to the Court Martial Appeal Court, continued in existence by section 1 of the Courts-Martial (Appeals) Act 1968. Section 2 makes its judges the ex officio and ordinary judges of the Court of Appeal, High Court judges nominated by the Lord Chief Justice, Lords Commissioners of Justiciary nominated by the Lord Justice General, and judges of the Court of Judicature of Northern Ireland nominated by the Lord Chief Justice of Northern Ireland, with a power for the Lord Chancellor to appoint others. The judiciary describes it as the civilian Court of Appeal reconstituted for the Court Martial, and that is a fair working description — the same judges, in the Royal Courts of Justice. It is nonetheless a separate court with its own name, and calling a Court Martial Appeal Court ruling a "Court of Appeal ruling" without qualification will get you corrected. Appeals from the Service Civilian Court go the other way: under section 285, to the Court Martial.

The concurrent jurisdiction argument, and where it stands

This is the live story on the beat, and the one most often reported out of date. In February 2020 the Ministry of Defence published the Service Justice System Review by HH Shaun Lyons, a retired senior Crown Court judge. Among its recommendations was that murder, manslaughter and rape should not be prosecuted at Court Martial where the offence was committed in the UK, except with the consent of the Attorney General. The Ministry of Defence did not accept it: it decided that the existing principle of concurrency between the service and civilian systems should be retained, with cases determined individually.

What Parliament enacted instead, in section 7 of the Armed Forces Act 2021, was a protocol. That section inserted Chapter 3A — sections 320A to 320C — into Part 13 of the Armed Forces Act 2006. The Director of Service Prosecutions and the Director of Public Prosecutions must agree a protocol on the exercise of concurrent jurisdiction in England and Wales, with equivalents for Scotland and Northern Ireland; the overriding principle under section 320A(4) is the promotion of fair and efficient justice. Crucially, where the two prosecutors disagree in a given case, section 320A leaves the decision to the civilian side: it is for the Director of Public Prosecutions to decide in which jurisdiction proceedings should be brought.

The protocol itself was agreed in 2023, superseding a 2016 version, and was updated in February 2026. It sets out a non-exhaustive list of factors, including some that point towards the civilian courts (cases involving children, domestic abuse and sexual offences) and some that point towards the service courts (extraterritorial conduct, disciplinary offences, operational effectiveness). It also directs prosecutors to seek assurance from the police that the victim has been asked whether they have views on jurisdiction. That is the state of the law: not a bar on trying rape at court martial, but a structured decision with the civilian DPP holding the deciding vote.

The Armed Forces Bill — the five-yearly renewal of the Armed Forces Act 2006 — carries the next instalment. It was introduced on 15 January 2026, had its second reading on 26 January, was scrutinised by a specially convened select committee which reported on 29 April, cleared report stage and third reading in the Commons on 22 June, and had its Lords second reading on 6 July, with Lords committee stage from 2 September 2026. The Ministry of Defence announcement of 26 January 2026 describes new protective orders covering inappropriate sexualised behaviours, domestic abuse, stalking and harassment; stronger guidance to help victims give prosecutors an informed view on whether they want their case tried in the civilian or service system; and expanded service police powers including pre-charge custody authorisation. It does not remove murder or rape from Court Martial jurisdiction. Check the Bill's current stage before you write that anything has changed.

Working the beat

• ›Diarise the assize cycle. New listings appear by the last working day before each one or two week period. Set a fortnightly reminder to check the gov.uk publication rather than hoping to notice it.
• ›Ring the court officer, always. The listing has no offence column, so the only way to know what a TRIAL entry is about is to ask. The numbers are printed on the listing itself, one set for Bulford and one for Catterick.
• ›Learn the proceedings codes before you travel. TRIAL and sentencing hearings are worth the journey; PTPH and FCMH entries are case management and are routinely conducted with parties attending remotely.
• ›Know which centre to watch. Royal Navy cases default to Bulford, RAF cases to Catterick, Army cases split between the two, and cases involving civilians subject to service discipline are allocated case by case.
• ›Do not assume the two centres are the whole story. The Military Court Service runs a portable court and trials can be held elsewhere in the UK or overseas — Tidworth is a recent example — so a big case may not appear where you expect.
• ›Mine the results CSVs. Fifteen years of charge, finding and sentence data by rank, service, unit and court centre supports the kind of pattern story nobody else on your patch is doing: sentencing trends, unit clusters, acquittal rates by offence type.
• ›Build the Service Prosecuting Authority into your contacts, alongside the Military Court Service. The SPA prosecutes all service offences before the service courts and applies the Code for Crown Prosecutors; it is the natural place to confirm charges and outcomes.
• ›Watch the concurrent jurisdiction decision as a story in itself. Why a UK offence went to the Court Martial rather than the Crown Court is a legitimate and under-asked question, and the published DPP/DSP protocol gives you the framework to ask it properly.

Common mistakes to avoid

• ⚠Calling the board a jury, or its members jurors. They are lay members, sitting as the board. They are serving personnel, they can number three, four or six, and unlike a jury they also vote on sentence.
• ⚠Reporting a majority conviction as if it were a hung jury, or vice versa. Two of three is a lawful Court Martial conviction under s.160(A1). Do not import Crown Court arithmetic.
• ⚠Saying the judge advocate found the defendant guilty. Under s.160(A1) the judge advocate does not vote on the finding at all — though under s.160(1) and (4) they do vote on sentence, and hold the casting vote.
• ⚠Assuming HMCTS rules and protocols apply. The Military Court Service is part of the Ministry of Defence. The magistrates and Crown Court media protocols, the HMCTS listing service and the usual court-document routes have no application here.
• ⚠Treating "no listing on the HMCTS service" as "no hearing". Military courts have never been on Find a Court or Tribunal. The listings are MoD transparency data published as PDFs.
• ⚠Joining a listing name to a results-CSV row. Listings have names and no offences; results have offences and no names. The join is not available, and guessing at it is how you get sued.
• ⚠Assuming a civilian reporting restriction applies without tracing its route. Complainant anonymity reaches service cases through s.2(4) of the 1992 Act via the corresponding England and Wales offence; youth anonymity through the separate service-court limb of s.45 YJCEA 1999.
• ⚠Appealing to the wrong court in copy. It is the Court Martial Appeal Court — the same judges as the Court of Appeal, but a distinct statutory court with its own name and citations.
• ⚠Writing that murder and rape were moved out of the Court Martial. They were not. Lyons recommended it in 2020, the MoD declined, and the Armed Forces Act 2021 created a jurisdiction protocol instead, with the civilian DPP holding the final say.

Frequently asked questions