James Wright

100 available Crown Court rooms from the existing court estate were shut for two days last week as we don’t have the judicial capacity to use them, let alone enough prosecutors and defenders, to try all the cases we need. Both for rape and other serious sexual offence trials, robbery, serious violence, drugs, fraud or human trafficking. The lot. Addressing our justice professional capacity shortages is a necessary must pre requisite, before ‘adding’ another 80 physical court rooms, otherwise the idea that “specialist courts will be set up in unused rooms and spare capacity within every existing crown court” will remain a chimera. Repurposing court rooms that are empty because we can’t man or woman them, means they will still lie idle as everything possible is being used and we have collectively no spare capacity. 20% fewer court rooms were actually used last week than are currently available as we can’t fill them with judges let alone prosecutors and defenders. That’s why as @TheCriminalBar analysis picked up by @NAOorguk shows: in 2023 a record 1,436 trials of all offences in the Crown Court were adjourned on day 1, due to the absence of either a prosecution or defence advocate, a 20 fold increase on 2019. Our CBA analysis shows further that includes 756 trials ‘aborted’ due to no prosecutor, a 42 fold increase in trials of all offences adjourned on day 1 due to lack of a prosecutor in in just four years since just 18 trials of all offences adjourned on day 1 in 2019 due to lack of a prosecutor. That includes a by far worst record ever high of 139 sexual offences trials in 2023 adjourned on day 1 due to no prosecutor, of which another worst record high 32 adult rape trials, adjourned on day 1 - no prosecutor. In each of the years 2016, 2017, 2018 and 2019 just 1 adult rape trial was similarly adjourned per year on day 1 due to a prosecutor shortage. On Thursday+Friday last week 1 in 5 of existing, useable Crown Court rooms shut as we had insufficient judges available including recorders - part time judges largely drawn from a diminished pool of criminal barristers - that is back to the levels experienced all summer 2023. The start which has been clear and obvious since summer 2021 - as acknowledged even then by then Lord Chief Justice - must be to first address the chronic and worsening shortage of criminal barristers to meet the current inflow of new criminal charges arriving in court. That human legal professionals capacity is needed also to address what is now a record backlog of fast approaching 70,000+ outstanding cases, again to provide the necessary prosecution and defence counsel required for every single case before trial, during trial and after at any sentencing hearing. From @Independent last week: “Research by the CBA, which surveyed 780 criminal barristers, found almost two-thirds of prosecutors said they would not be reapplying to be on the rape and serious sexual offences list.  The organisation’s latest figures show that cases with a bailed defendant take an average of 18 months to complete, 80 per cent longer than five years ago. Communications director James Rossiter said this is likely to become a two-year wait as trial dates are now routinely being given for summer 2026. He said: “There is a chronic shortage of suitably qualified prosecutors to handle rape and serious sexual offence cases which has worsened significantly in the last 18 months. “The overall pool of around 2,400 specialist criminal barristers is around a fifth smaller than seven years ago and that has had a huge impact on those few left who specialise in sexual offence cases.” He said the government’s rape review action plan put forward “laudable targets” to increase the number of rape cases coming to court back to 2016 levels but that the review failed to include any target for how long it would take for cases to conclude.”