Justice system will feel long-term fallout from riots, says Justice Secretary

Shabana Mahmood warned that the riots will set back Labour’s plans to fix the criminal justice system.

Shabana Mahmood (Jordan Pettitt/PA) (PA Wire)

The impact of days of disorder will be “felt for months and years” in the criminal justice system, the Justice Secretary has said.

Shabana Mahmood said the riots will set back the new Labour Government’s efforts to fix the justice system, which was already facing a massive backlog of court cases and dwindling space in prisons.

The Ministry of Justice has risen to the challenge of “bringing rapid charges against these thugs and hooligans”, including by bringing forward more than 500 prison places to make sure there is space for those the courts are sending to custody, Ms Mahmood wrote in The Observer.

But she said this was made more difficult by the situation her Government inherited from the Conservatives.

She said: “The impact of these days of disorder will be felt for months and years to come. They make the job of rebuilding the justice system harder.

“They also offer a sobering reminder of how much worse things might have been had this Government not acted fast, a few weeks ago, to address the crisis in our criminal justice system before it was too late.”

Soon after being elected in July, the Government announced plans to release some inmates early to free up prison space.