JSP

““I just wouldn’t have believed that our country could be like that.” Repeated trial delays, worsening shortages of criminal barristers to prosecute and defend cases of serious, violence and sexual offences, all amid a botched @HMCTSgovuk £1.3bn IT reform roll-out (see @NAOorguk) The human impact behind the numbers via @thetimes thetimes.co.uk/article/crime… “Elizabeth Hudson thought her long-term partner was going to kill her. On the morning of April 3, 2021, at his home near Leeds, Martin Underwood punched her in the stomach, hit her in the face with a phone, grabbed a knife, slashed her arm, and threatened her. She managed to escape and, running into the arms of his next-door neighbour, dared to hope her ordeal was over. It was just beginning. Underwood was arrested but bailed and free to go about his life. A trial had been scheduled for June 2022, but at the very last minute was postponed until November with no explanation. Her work as a PR specialist on hold, she lived in fear, spending thousands on extra home security. Then in August, she received a message from Underwood’s new fiancée: he had just tried to strangle and suffocate her. Had justice been done promptly, she says, he would not have attacked again. Yet following several more postponements Underwood, 48, was only sentenced in February 2023. He was given six years and three months in jail. The sheer incompetence deeply appalled Hudson. “I just wouldn’t have believed that our country could be like that.” It is a stark reminder of the consequence of delayed justice. Some 66,547 cases were outstanding in crown courts at the end of September, the highest level on record; five years ago, it was 33,000. Some 6,505 cases have been waiting more than two years for their case to be heard. This is unprecedented: five years ago, the total was 740. Back in late 2018, victims of robbery had to wait 182 days between their ordeal and a trial being completed. Today, it is 311 days. For violent assault victims, delays have risen from 229 to 325 days. Rape victims are waiting 686 days — nearly two years — up from 589. And fraud victims, who used to wait 781 days, are now waiting 1,114 for justice, if they receive any at all. Last week the senior presiding judge for England and Wales, Lord Justice Edis, called the long delays suffered by victims an “unacceptable state of affairs” and a “serious stain on our system.” He announced plans to bring forward some of the longest-running rape cases. The English legal system was once the envy of the world, yet “everything within the criminal justice system has been chronically underfunded for years,” says Claire Waxman, Victims Commissioner for London. “Victims don’t get on with life, they wait for that day which keeps getting postponed, compounding the trauma.” In some cases, as Baroness Helen Newlove, the victims commissioner for England and Wales, said last month, delays are so long that people are dying before their assailants face trial. The number of sitting court days is still below what it was, despite the government removing a cap on court time. But although courts are open more, the amount of time hearing cases was just 2.8 hours a day in 2022, down from 3.5 hours before the pandemic. Aside from a decaying court estate — which has suffered real-terms budget cuts of nearly a fifth since 2010 — there are other reasons courts are doing less than they used to.”