Reporting the Single Justice Procedure

What the Single Justice Procedure is

The Single Justice Procedure (SJP) allows a magistrates court to try a criminal case entirely on the papers. There is no hearing, no courtroom, and neither the prosecutor nor the defendant attends. A single magistrate considers the written charge, the prosecution evidence, and anything the defendant has submitted in writing, and then convicts, acquits, and sentences on that material alone. The statutory framework is in sections 16A to 16F of the Magistrates' Courts Act 1980, inserted by section 48 of the Criminal Justice and Courts Act 2015 ("Trial by single justice on the papers"), in force since April 2015.

The scale is what makes this matter for journalists. The Ministry of Justice's Criminal Court Statistics Quarterly for January to March 2026 recorded over 222,000 defendants dealt with via the SJP in that quarter alone — 64% of all defendants dealt with at the magistrates courts, excluding breaches and cases sent to the Crown Court. SJP cases made up 59% of new magistrates court receipts in the quarter, and the open SJP caseload of 186,157 cases was half the entire open caseload of the magistrates courts.

In other words: the majority of criminal convictions in England and Wales are now produced by a process with no public hearing. If your court reporting is built entirely around sitting in courtrooms, you are missing most of the caseload.

Which cases qualify — and how they are decided

Two features of s.16A deserve particular attention from reporters. First, the court "may try the charge in the absence of the parties". Second, the court may not conduct any part of SJP proceedings in open court. The procedure is closed by design — which is why the media access arrangements described below exist.

What the SJP handles in practice

The Ministry of Justice publishes experimental ("statistics in development") breakdowns of SJP cases alongside the quarterly criminal court statistics. For January to March 2025, they show:

• Mostly motoring: Around 78% of SJP defendants faced summary motoring offences; speeding alone accounted for 31% of all defendants dealt with in the quarter. The ten most common offences covered roughly 94% of the caseload.
• Who prosecutes: The police were the most common SJP prosecutor (54%), followed by the DVLA (23%) and local authorities (6%). TV Licensing, train operators, and other authorised prosecutors use the procedure too.
• Shifting mix: TV licence prosecutions fell from 32,980 in Q1 2019 to 6,974 in Q1 2025, while railways offences rose from 7,646 to 27,427 over the same period.
• Most defendants never engage: Around 24% of SJP defendants entered a guilty plea, 2% pleaded not guilty and sought a hearing, and 74% entered no plea at all — meaning roughly three-quarters of cases are decided without any input from the defendant.

That last figure is the heart of the story. A process designed around written engagement is, in practice, mostly deciding cases where the defendant has said nothing — whether through choice, confusion, or because the notice never reached them.

The open justice problem — and the reform debate

Because no part of an SJP case is conducted in open court, the traditional mechanics of court reporting — turn up, listen, report — do not work. Scrutiny depends entirely on journalists requesting lists, registers, and case papers, and on prosecutors and courts operating the procedure properly. When they do not, nobody is in the room to notice.

The clearest demonstration came from the railways. On 15 August 2024, the Chief Magistrate, Senior District Judge Goldspring, ruled at Westminster Magistrates' Court (Northern Trains Ltd v Ballington and linked cases) that train operators had been using the SJP for fare evasion offences that were not eligible for the procedure. HMCTS identified prosecutions brought by nine operators — including Northern, TransPennine, Avanti West Coast, Greater Anglia and Great Western Railway — between 2018 and 2023. The affected cases were listed before the courts between November 2024 and February 2025 and declared invalid, with defendants contacted in writing about reimbursement of fines and costs. Years of unlawful convictions had accumulated with no hearing at which anyone could have objected — and much of the story was broken by journalists working from SJP paperwork.

The Magistrates' Association — the body representing magistrates themselves — published twelve recommendations for SJP reform in March 2024, including requiring prosecutors to review defendants' pleas and mitigations before cases proceed, and simplifying the paperwork sent to defendants. It has also called for accredited journalists to be allowed to observe SJP sittings and for far more data to be published about pleas and outcomes. In November 2024 the courts minister announced initial changes, including making the notice sent to defendants clearer; the Association welcomed this but said reform "needs to go further".

In March 2025 the Ministry of Justice opened a formal consultation, Oversight and regulation of private prosecutors in the criminal justice system, which ran to 8 May 2025 and explicitly covers reforms and safeguards to the SJP. As of this guide's last review, the government response had not yet been published — the consultation outcome is one to watch on this beat.

How journalists access SJP cases

Media access to SJP cases is governed by the HMCTS Protocol on sharing magistrates' court lists, registers and documents with journalists — jointly agreed by HMCTS, the News Media Association, and the Society of Editors, approved by the Lord Chancellor, and operating alongside Criminal Procedure Rule 5.8. First published in April 2020, it was most recently refreshed in June 2026. SJP cases are expressly covered.

• The lists: Magistrates court lists — including SJP cases — are provided to accredited media via the Courts and Tribunals Hearing service (and, transitionally, by email from individual courts). Lists intended for accredited media contain each defendant’s name, date of birth (when provided), age, alleged offence, and address. Lists and registers are free of charge.
• The registers: Court registers record outcomes and are provided by email from individual courts. HMCTS undertakes to ensure registers contain details of any reporting restrictions when they are first made — check before publishing.
• Case documents: In SJP cases journalists may request more than in ordinary cases: the prosecution statement of facts (or, if there is none, the witness statements, including embedded exhibits such as speed-camera photographs) and any defence representations in mitigation. The defendant’s statement of means is excluded, as it would not be read aloud in open court.
• How to request: Email the Courts and Tribunals Service Centre at SJSTeamLeaders@justice.gov.uk, attaching your UK Press Card or equivalent accreditation evidence. HMCTS’s service standard is to provide documents within one working day of an emailed request.
• Conditions: The data is shared in confidence for your own professional journalistic purposes and must not be passed to third parties. HMCTS reserves the right to stop sharing if it is concerned about how the information is being used, and you remain responsible for complying with any reporting restrictions.

Working the SJP as a local reporter

• ›Get on the list distribution first. Register for the Courts and Tribunals Hearing service with your accreditation, and ask your local court which SJP lists and registers it can send by email. Treat the weekly flow of lists as a beat fixture, like checking planning applications.
• ›Request the statement of facts for any case you plan to write up. The charge line on a list is rarely enough to report safely or interestingly — the statement of facts is the evidential core the magistrate actually sees.
• ›Request the mitigation too. Defendants’ written mitigations are where the human stories live — and where systemic problems (illness, bereavement, notices sent to old addresses) surface. This is the material that drove the national SJP scandals coverage.
• ›Scan for patterns, not just cases. Because SJP output is high-volume and standardised, it rewards data journalism: which prosecutors dominate locally, how many defendants enter no plea, which offences are rising.
• ›Remember the case is criminal and may be pending. Cases on a list may not yet have been decided. Report charges as charges, check the register for the outcome and any reporting restrictions, and apply the same care as with any active case.
• ›Verify identity before naming. Lists give name, age, date of birth (when provided), and address — use them to avoid mistaken identity, and follow the established convention of including enough detail (such as age and street-level address) to distinguish the defendant from namesakes.
• ›Chase the outcome. A charge you reported from the list deserves a follow-up from the register — including acquittals and withdrawn cases. Fairness aside, outcome pieces are quick wins from material already in your inbox.

Common mistakes to avoid

• ⚠Reporting a listed SJP case as a conviction. Being on the list means a charge is due to be considered, not that the defendant has been found guilty — check the register for the outcome before your copy implies one.
• ⚠Describing an SJP conviction as if there was a hearing. There is no "appearance", no "court was told", no prosecutor addressing a bench. Say the case was dealt with under the Single Justice Procedure, on the papers.
• ⚠Publishing from the defendant’s statement of means. It is expressly excluded from what HMCTS will provide, precisely because it would not be aired in open court.
• ⚠Sharing HMCTS list data with third parties or republishing raw lists. The protocol shares the data in confidence for your own journalistic use — misuse can end access for you and colleagues.
• ⚠Missing reporting restrictions because no one said them aloud. In a paper process nobody announces an order in court — the register is where restrictions are recorded, so read it.
• ⚠Assuming custody or serious offences are involved. SJP offences are non-imprisonable summary matters; if your copy implies someone faced jail via the SJP, it is wrong.

For the wider restrictions framework, see our reporting restrictions overview and contempt in active proceedings guide.

Primary sources

• Magistrates’ Courts Act 1980, s.16A — trial by single justice on the papers
• Criminal Justice and Courts Act 2015, s.48 — inserting the SJP framework
• HMCTS — media access guidance: criminal courts guide (incl. SJP protocol)
• MoJ — Criminal court statistics quarterly: January to March 2026
• MoJ consultation — Oversight and regulation of private prosecutors
• Judiciary — Northern Trains Ltd v Ballington & ors (Chief Magistrate, 15 August 2024)

Frequently asked questions