THE growing number of serious crimes being dealt with out of court threatens one of the basic principles of this country’s justice system.

Evidence came to light over the weekend of offences including rape and grievous bodily harm being ‘punished’ via cautions or fixed penalty notices.

Dealing with serious crimes in such a way means that justice is not seen to be done – and that cannot be right.

We do not want to see the courts filled with people accused of trivial offences. There are plenty of minor misdemeanours for which a fine or a telling off are perfectly adequate punishments.

But rape or bottling someone in a pub? We think not.

It is interesting that both the director of public prosecutions and the Metropolitan Police commissioner have raised serious concerns over the use of ‘out of court’ penalties.

We would ask, however, why Keir Starmer and Paul Stephenson are talking to the media about this problem when they should be resolving it.

They are the most senior people in their respective professions – and are therefore in charge of the people making the decisions to hand out cautions or fixed penalties.

If they think the system is not working properly then they should change it.

The basic guideline here must surely be that those accused of the most serious offences must appear in court to be judged by their peers.

We dread to think how many crimes are effectively being swept under the carpet.