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“The present way in which trials are organised, allocated and tried is no longer sustainable and, if continued, will lead to the collapse of the criminal justice system,” Sir Brian Leveson says in his report today on the criminal courts of England and Wales.

Leveson was invited to carry out his review by the justice secretary, Shabana Mahmood. She welcomed his 400-page report and promised to do “whatever it takes” to bring down the backlog of cases awaiting trial.

Thanking the former head of criminal justice, Mahmood said, “We will now consider all his recommendations and will respond, in full, ahead of legislating in the autumn.”

As expected, the former head of criminal justice is recommending that more cases should be decided by magistrates and fewer cases should tried by a judge and jury. He proposes a number of ways in which this can be achieved:

* Remove the right for defendants to elect (choose) trial by jury in cases that can currently be tried either by magistrates or in the Crown Court (“ether-way cases”) and where the maximum penalty is two years’ imprisonment.

* Reclassify some either-way cases as summary only, which means they would no longer be eligible for trial in the Crown Court.

* Create a new “bench division” of the Crown Court consisting of a judge and two magistrates, which could try all either-way cases and would deal with defendants expected to receive no more than three years’ imprisonment on conviction.

* Allow defendants in the Crown Court to elect trial by judge alone, subject to the judge’s consent.

* Require serious and complex fraud cases to be tried by judge alone.

* Allow courts to direct trial by judge alone in cases of exceptional length or complexity.

We discussed all these options in depth when I interviewed Leveson yesterday for the latest episode of A Lawyer Talks. But we didn’t spend too much time on his recommendations for encouraging greater use of out-of-court resolutions — alternatives to prosecution — even though that part of his report had been leaked to the Daily Mail in what was seen as a classic “dead cat” distraction strategy.

Initial reaction to Leveson’s proposals has not been entirely supportive — although I received a pretty dusty answer when I suggested he was taking on the entire legal establishment. To give those most affected by Leveson’s recommendations a chance to study the report — and listen to his only in-depth interview — I’ll leave coverage of the responses until tomorrow.

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