00:00Just a few days before Christmas last year, Jenny took her baby girl into hospital.
00:07She wasn't feeding properly, but baby Scarlett's condition worsened suddenly and entirely unexpectedly.
00:15The paediatrician came in and said,
00:20I'm...
00:22Sorry.
00:23He said,
00:26I think you need to come back through.
00:28We're doing everything that we can.
00:30My whole mind was just on
00:35praying, begging her to stay
00:41and to
00:43to wake up for her heart to start
00:49and just for her not to leave.
00:55You were holding her hands when she passed away?
00:57Yeah.
00:59Baby Scarlett was just three months old.
01:02In the time between seeing her baby die and then the funeral,
01:06Jenny's car insurance had lapsed for one single day before she remembered to renew it.
01:12Jenny was still grieving her daughter's death when a letter arrived telling her she was being prosecuted.
01:19Your case will be dealt with under the single justice procedure.
01:22This single justice procedure is a fast-track system for low-level offences.
01:27In a court, Jenny could have been given legal advice to plead not guilty due to her circumstances
01:33and she'd be given the chance to explain what happened.
01:35But that is not the case in this procedure, done entirely on paper.
01:39I felt completely signposted to plead guilty.
01:43And you wrote to the court and you explained the mitigating circumstances.
01:47You told them exactly why the insurance had lapsed,
01:50that you weren't trying to get away with anything, you weren't trying to dodge anything.
01:54No, I put in the mitigating circumstances that I didn't have insurance for the one day.
02:00So I thought, yeah, I'm guilty.
02:03So I'll take guilty and then just say what happened and I'm sure they'll understand.
02:06So you said, I'm guilty but here's the reasons why it happened,
02:09and you were hoping that would be taken into consideration.
02:11We can tell you that you were actually convicted,
02:15even though you wrote back with your mitigating circumstances to tell them what happened.
02:19Yeah.
02:20How does that make you feel?
02:22I'm upset and angry because they've overlooked my child's death by doing that.
02:33They've not acknowledged that my child's died.
02:36This is the most extreme horrible thing that's happened in my life
02:42and I would absolutely think that is a mitigating circumstance.
02:49This fast-track system that convicted Jenny is used for 40,000 cases every month in England and Wales.
02:55Just last month, the same system was under scrutiny
02:58when 74,000 people were told their prosecutions for alleged rail fare evasion could be overturned.
03:05Now, in a joint investigation between ITV News and the Evening Standard,
03:10we've identified flaws in other single justice procedure cases,
03:14mainly for DVLA offences like Jenny's and also TV licensing.
03:18We started by asking a panel of four criminal barristers to independently review Jenny's conviction.
03:24They were unanimous.
03:26It was not in the public interest to prosecute her.
03:28And they all agreed, if Jenny had access to a lawyer in open court,
03:32it would have had a different outcome.
03:34But Jenny's is not an isolated case.
03:37We selected 50 more cases where people with strong mitigating circumstances
03:41had been convicted in this procedure.
03:43The panel of lawyers found almost three-quarters were not in the public interest to prosecute
03:48and nearly two-thirds would have had a different outcome with a lawyer in open court.
03:53We found an example here of an elderly man who was prosecuted
03:57despite the fact that he was in hospital undergoing open-heart surgery
04:01when he was accused of missing a payment.
04:03Another man here with learning disabilities.
04:05He said he tried to pay his TV licence but he was struggling with the computer system.
04:09His mum paid on his behalf but he was still prosecuted.
04:12And here we found one case that we can now reveal
04:15that the single justice procedure has convicted a man who didn't respond to the letter
04:19but he couldn't because he was already dead.
04:22These cases are being decided by magistrates who are volunteers.
04:26We took our findings to their association.
04:28There was no response because he was already dead.
04:31They admit to us mistakes are happening
04:33because prosecutors don't even read the explanations from the people they are trying to convict.
04:39There isn't that process of the prosecuting authority
04:44deciding whether it passes the public interest test
04:48based on what has been written by the defendant and what should happen.
04:52People might think that's a cornerstone of justice.
04:56Is it in the interests of justice?
04:58Is it in the public interest to prosecute this person?
05:00But we have a legal system here where that's not happening.
05:02At the moment that's not happening and it should happen.
05:05And that's one of the most important recommendations that we're asking for change to happen.
05:12How is it possible that someone who's died can be prosecuted in this single justice procedure system?
05:17Well, clearly it shouldn't be the case that that happened.
05:24And it needs to be looked at as to whether checks need to be approved
05:28to make sure that people who are prosecuted are not deceased.
05:33Tristan Kirk at the Evening Standard has been investigating this legal system for the last four years.
05:38He's uncovered evidence of the single justice procedure wrongfully convicting children
05:43and he thinks speed is being prioritised over justice.
05:46You find that magistrates are taking less and less time over the decisions that they're taking.
05:53Some cases being dealt with in 45 seconds, which...
05:57Well, 45 seconds.
05:5945 seconds.
06:00That's not even possible to read the mitigated circumstances in that.
06:03It really confirms this suspicion that people have had all along
06:07is that this is a conveyor belt of justice, rubber stamping people's convictions and fines
06:14without giving them the individual consideration that they really deserve.
06:18This single justice procedure was first introduced to speed up magistrate court decisions back in 2015.
06:25Lord Thomas was head of the courts in England and Wales at that time.
06:29We showed him our analysis.
06:31It's upsetting because they've overlooked my child's death.
06:35And he told us he is disappointed to see it has not been reformed.
06:39Does it raise concerns about the single justice procedure carrying on in its current form?
06:44Yes. I think it is clear from what I've seen, from what the Magistrates Association are saying
06:50that there are aspects of this procedure, very important aspects, that need reviewing.
06:56Fixing this is not difficult.
06:59It really is something that the Ministry and the prosecuting authorities
07:05ought to consider with a degree of urgency.
07:10It's overdue now.
07:11Yes.
07:12Our investigation has uncovered evidence of a system convicting people
07:16who should not have been prosecuted.
07:18Some have been fined, some will pay more for insurance for the rest of their lives
07:22because their explanations and pleas for compassion
07:25haven't even been read by those prosecuting them.
07:28And despite the flaws we have exposed,
07:30this system continues, unreformed, to convict thousands in our courts every week.
07:36Peter Smith, ITV News.
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