I'm a little bit uneasy about the plans to allow a jury to know the prior convictions of a defendant on trial. I can see why this idea will be a popular one, but I can't help thinking that it will be hard for someone to get a fair trial if the jury knows that they have been convicted for a similar offence in the past. The idea is that the defendant gets tried on the evidence presented by the prosecution, but is this likely to happen if the prior convictions are presented first?

Being on a jury is a hard job in most cases (been there, done that) it's important that you weigh up the evidence before you and come to your decision on that alone. I guess that past convictions are likely to lead to more guilty verdicts because each juror isn't going to have to worry too hard about finding an innocent person guilty because the defendant with past convictions will always appear to be more guilty than someone with no convictions.

A good example is the Sarah Payne case, Roy Whiting was tried and convicted and only then were his previous convictions made public. That must have been a big validation that the decision was a correct one