In this second episode of Criminal Justice Matters, the podcast series from the Criminal Bar Association of England and Wales, Mary Prior KC, Vice Chair of the CBA explains how serious delays in the courts are jeopardising the entire justice system.
We hear from Paul, a man who spent four years on bail awaiting trial. He talks about the impact on his life, from his family and friends putting him on suicide watch to the loss of his job and being ostracized by many in his community.
The former Resident Judge at Leeds Crown Court, Peter Collier KC, describes how his final years on the bench were characterized by a squeeze on funding from the Ministry of Justice and what that meant for the number of sitting days, the government measure for how much our Crown Courts were open and holding hearings including trials each year.
Crown Court rooms were open for 109,000 sitting days in 2011 but by April 2019 they had been cut to around 82,300 for the financial year which would end in March 2020 which is effectively a 25% reduction. Delays to trials mounted and the backlog rose 25% in just one year before Covid even began.
Jonathan Dunne, a criminal barrister with over 30 years’ experience prosecuting and defending cases involving serious sexual and violent offences, explains why he set up the @CourtsIdle Twitter account to monitor the rapid decline in Crown Court sitting time in England and Wales. A decline which has seen the backlog of criminal cases double regardless of the impact of Covid or the barristers’ strike action.
The current backlog of criminal cases stands at approximately 70,000, more than double the backlog of just 33,000 at the start of 2019. These figures are not mere numbers; they represent tens of thousands of people like Paul whose lives are on hold.
The consequence of years of underfunding is that our criminal justice system is teetering on the brink of collapse.
We, the criminal barristers tasked with prosecuting and defending criminal cases, are working back-to-back on cases to try and maintain fair trials amid mounting delays.
As Mary Prior KC concludes “The human cost of delay is monumental.”
Join us as we continue a real-life journey through criminal justice – because Criminal Justice Matters.
Criminal Justice Matters is produced on behalf of the Criminal Bar Association by Adam Batstone Media & Communications.
For any further information on issues raised in this series contact James Rossiter CBA director of Communications