"The delays mean that for some serious crimes charged today the victims and suspects could be left waiting years for justice as they are unlikely to see the case come to trial before 2030. This crisis has prompted the government to announce radical reforms to the criminal courts, including removing juries - a fundamental part of our criminal justice system - from a number of trials in England and Wales in an attempt to speed up justice and slash the backlog."
"The latest MoJ figures show there has been a huge growth in cases taking two years or more to conclude, something that was a rarity before 2010 budget cuts began to bite, and which was later exacerbated by the pandemic and other factors. About a quarter of violence and drug offences, many of which do not require the defendant to be detained pre-trial, have been in the backlog for at least a year."
"At the heart of this story is funding - and the lack of it - which started in 2010. Back then the coalition government pledged to slash spending to balance the books - and the MoJ took a huge cut to its 9bn budget. It means its total spending today is 13bn, which is 4.5bn lower in real terms than it would have been had"
More than 79,600 criminal cases are currently stuck in the Crown Court backlog in England and Wales, with projections reaching 100,000 by 2028. The backlog is producing multi-year delays that could keep victims, defendants and witnesses waiting until after 2030 for some trials. Cases taking two years or more to conclude have risen sharply since 2010, worsened by the pandemic and other factors. Around a quarter of violence and drug offences and over 30% of sexual offences have been delayed at least a year; sexual offences open for over a year increased from about 200 in 2019 to more than 4,000. Long-term funding cuts underpin the crisis and the government proposes removing juries from some trials to speed up processing.
Read at www.bbc.com
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