Coronavirus: Court closures could cause 'car crash' of cases backlog, warn lawyers

Outstanding cases were already up 13 per cent last year

Flora Thompson
Friday 27 March 2020 16:53 GMT
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Enforced court closures due to the coronavirus outbreak could prompt a “car crash” of an extra backlog in cases, lawyers have warned.

The concerns were raised as fresh figures revealed outstanding cases waiting to be heard in crown courts already jumped 13 per cent in the last year.

The workload of crown courts increased last year with levels of outstanding cases going back to levels seen in 2017, according to figures from the Ministry of Justice (MoJ).

The volume of outstanding cases increased by 13 per cent compared with the previous year, from 33,113 in 2018 to 37,434 in 2019, the quarterly October to December statistics said.

On Thursday, the MoJ said jury trials that were already under way were continuing but no new trials were starting and crown courts were only covering “urgent work”.

Caroline Goodwin QC, chair of the Criminal Bar Association (CBA), said: “The crown court sitting days budget cuts imposed on the financial year 2019/20 just ending have proven to be a shambolic miscalculation and now we have a car crash of an extra backlog building up from the Covid-19-enforced courts closure to deal with.

“The criminal justice system can no longer be so shamefully and abusively cut back to the brink of collapse.

“The CBA will be holding the secretary of state for justice to his commitment made to parliament this week to fully reopen the courts once the pandemic is safely over.”

A Ministry of Justice spokesperson said: “These figures show that waiting times for Crown Court cases were the lowest ever.

“The lord chancellor recently increased the number of sitting days to tackle the rise in outstanding cases.”

Reuters

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