Four defendants including 50-year-old Glen Cameron from New Milton in Hampshire (represented by Kirsty Brimelow and Benjamin Newton) have appeared in court in the first crown-court criminal trial to be held in England & Wales without a jury for over 350 years.

In this ground-breaking trial which is being held at the Royal Courts of Justice rather than at the Old Bailey, Mr Justice Treacy is acting as judge and jury.

This is the fourth trial of the defendants who are accused of involvement in a £1.75m armed robbery at a cash depot at Heathrow Airport in 2004. During the first trial one of the defendants suffered a heart attack; in the second the jury was reduced from 12 to nine and was unable to reach a decision while the third trial was abandoned nearly halfway through after the judge reported that information had been received which pointed to "a serious attempt at jury tampering". The prosecution then applied for a trial without jury.

The trial will be the first crown-court case in England and Wales to be heard by a judge alone, using powers under Sections 44 and 46 of the Criminal Justice Act 2003 that came into force in July 2007. In June last year the four accused lost the last in a series of legal challenges to stop the trial going ahead under these new powers when the appeal court ruled - after considering secret evidence - that the danger of jury tampering was "very significant".

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