Idle Courts
@CourtsIdle
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A place originally set up to report the under-use of Crown Courts in England and Wales. Now a place to report on the daily failings of a system unable to cope.
Joined August 2019
The latest shoe to drop in the CJS, is the fact that trials cannot proceed due to the lack of an advocate for one side or the other. DMs are open. Discretion assured. Examples please.
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Rape trials: a thread. If you have never taken any part in a rape trial, either as a party, a witness or a juror, you might think that the government’s announcement today of specialist courts to improve conviction rates is a very good idea. 1/.
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When will the government stop treating the office of Lord Chancellor as a consolation prize?.
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Wishing all of my colleagues the best of luck for tomorrow. There will be sleepless nights tonight for many. You are doing the right thing. If we don’t take a stand now, we never will. #barristerstrike.
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So the magic money tree can drop £120m on a hare-brained Rwanda scheme, but can’t afford to properly fund “the best Criminal Justice System in the world”. Shameful on a number of fronts.
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Lawyers don’t ordinarily express emotions. May I be forgiven for saying how relieved and delighted I am to see the back of @DominicRaab. An utter disgrace to the office he held. The man singularly responsible for the current dire state of the CJS. Good riddance.
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CVP request because counsel has no fuel. HHJ refuses and asks for proof of the amount of fuel left and the number of garages visited. When 15 are listed, CVP is still refused, Counsel will now borrow her husband’s car, using the last of his fuel. No wonder good will has run out.
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If it looks like a gimmick, walks like a gimmick and talks like a gimmick, to distract from the systemic problem of underfunding, it’s a gimmick. /Ends.
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Next week barristers strike for 4 days and for 5 days the week after. “Them’s the breaks” when you take us for granted.
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🧵 In an East Midlands Crown Court today, a man was due to stand his trial for 2 separate knife-point robberies. Just the sort of case that everyone treats as a priority, given its seriousness and the fact that the accused is remanded in custody. 1/n.
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News reaches the account, from an impeccable source, that there is a trial listed in a Crown Court in the central part of England tomorrow, where there is no prosecuting or defending advocate available to appear. We are at new lows.
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The tragic and entirely predictable outcome when the Criminal Justice System is broken.
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The picture on the left is the room in which Mike Freer MP told us yesterday, that he did not recognise the “dystopian future” portrayed by criminal legal professionals. The picture on the right is the actuality. He lives in another world.
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My clerks are usually magicians when it comes to finding cover. Tomorrow, despite trying over 80 other sets, we have no one to prosecute a trial in an East Midlands Crown Court. With their typical professionalism they feel as if they have failed. It's not them who have failed.
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🧵Some of the Press would have you believe that barristers have been given some whopping pay rise today. It’s a lie. 1/8.
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Whose fault is this Prime Minister? If a woman's boyfriend breaks her arm tonight, expect him to be bailed. Expect him to deny it. Expect him to be tried in late 2022 or 2023. You and those before you, caused this.
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🧵It is wrong to describe the proposed action by barristers on 11/4/22 a ‘strike’, still less as “totally unwarranted” as Dominic Rabb did in the Commons last week. Imagine you were a jobbing builder, with a full diary of jobs of your own to do. 1/.
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🧵 The state of our CJS today. From a correspondent somewhere in England or Wales “In 2020 4 young girls aged between 12 and 15 came to light as complainants. Their alleged sexual abuse had been going on for 3 years. A large enquiry was commenced. 1/.
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On the very day that the Lord Chancellor tells us that the Criminal Justice System has had extra investment and is to be front and centre of the government’s legislative programme, I give you two examples of the realities, from a single East Midlands Crown Court, this morning.
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In April 2018, my wife gave up being a criminal duty solicitor after 23 years. This is the letter she wrote to our MP. It was on the “brink of collapse” 4 years ago. It’s all but collapsed now.
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Can the government just concentrate on the daily car crash that is the CJS, rather than fixating on defendants not attending court?. An entire Crown Court (Harrow) is closed as a safety measure and my trial for a November 2020 allegation, only started today. Priorities, please.
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Today’s been a success. Not because my floating trial didn’t get on (adjourned until 2023), but because the witness to whom I was apologising, said “The government would have me believe this is all because of Covid. Even I know that’s bollocks.” He had no connection with the CJS.
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Tomorrow, 31 Crown Court rooms across London are closed. That is the equivalent of the entire capacity of Southwark, Harrow and Croydon combined. Meanwhile, waiting times for trials ever lengthen. Utter, utter madness.
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East Midlands Crown Court, application today to adjourn a home-invasion robbery trial (from - would you believe - 2017) which trial should have been listed tomorrow. Reason:. NO PROSECUTING COUNSEL AVAILABLE. Now to be heard in March 2024. This is where we’re at folks.
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It would be a 10-year plan to fix this mess and yet no political party is showing the slightest realisation that things are so desperate, or still less have the first notions of that plan. /Ends.
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In the coming weeks the Government will seek to paint barristers in a bad light. It is a tragedy that we, as a nation rooted in the rule of law, have every criminal law practitioner behind this action. This is not what we want. The solution is simple: properly fund the CJS.
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Inner London Crown Court is effectively closed tomorrow because the heating has broken (again). How depressingly embarrassing for a so-called 1st-world country.
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Reality check for the “Party of Law and Order”. 2 YEARS ago a 12 year old reported 2 sexual assaults. The trial should have been in December. No court. It then should have been held yesterday. No court. It’s now slated for April 2025. They should be hounded out of office.
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Our “well-funded” courts resemble those in a war-torn third world country. The robing room at Maidstone Crown Court. With picture of willow and stream. Anyone know what the stain is?
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When I started at the bar, you would likely have a QC briefed in a rape. My trial on Monday is a rape as the second floater behind 2 other trials. When Boris next tells you that the government “take rape cases incredibly seriously”, think back to this shocking state of affairs.
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So, by the end of the Tory party conference, there has not been a word on their plans to deal with 60,000 outstanding Crown Court cases, or their plans to deal with record delays in the CJS. Not a single new court building, but longer sentences for cases that cannot be tried.
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Maidstone Crown and County Court building closed due to a fire. Caused by a portable heater brought in because the heating has broken. The state of it.
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🧵I have had a number of non-lawyers contact the account asking for an explanation of why the courts are struggling when they are all now sitting. This is my best analogy in response. If you likened the Court system to a sausage factory, you could have all of the machines 1/.
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Anyone watching Mr Bates vs The Post Office, needs to appreciate the value of a properly-resourced CJS. The very idea that people should plead guilty, in the hope of a good result, is anathema to all criminal lawyers. Underfund us at Society’s peril.
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Riddle me this?.£130m on the Rwanda project. 0 flights. £236m on Common Platform, which doesn’t work. And yet they won’t pay a tiny fraction of that, to abide by their own report and get barristers back to work. And they won’t negotiate with us.
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Whilst you on the other hand, won’t even meet @TheCriminalBar to talk about the backlog in the Crown Court, which is plainly not a priority service.
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A Crown Court in the South East has just listed a bail trial for the first week of 2028.
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Unless @UKLabour do something radical to save the criminal justice system, as things stand, there will be some people arrested today, who will not be tried until after the next General Election. Let that sink in.
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Crumbling Court estate. Jurors at Brighton Crown this week were so cold from freezing air from a system that couldn’t be turned off, that they wore coats and hats. Electric heaters brought in for them, blew the electrics of the entire building. Trial forced to move to Hove.
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On Tuesday, 9 out of 20 courts are not sitting at Snaresbrook Crown Court. We have 60,000 outstanding cases. Victims are waiting years for justice, yet nearly half of that court stands idle. The Lord Chancellor blames barristers for our action. He might look closer to home.
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🧵 This is going to be a long thread. Please bear with it, because it demonstrates the absolutely hopeless state, and indeed impossible state, of the listings in just one Crown Court, Nottingham, today. Nottingham has 9 courts. All are sitting.
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Although all the news is about the strike, it’s worth reminding ourselves of the ongoing infrastructure problems, emblematic of underinvestment. Have a look at Preston Crown Court robing room today. Says it all, really.
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🧵The current 75,000 case backlog in the Crown Court is due very largely to a stupid penny-pinching experiment in 2018/19, where the government arbitrarily restricted the number of sitting days in the Crown Court. 1/6.
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A trial due to start today at the Old Bailey cannot go ahead due to the lack of an available prosecutor. Such a thing used to be unheard of but is now a daily occurrence.
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If she and the others cannot be persuaded to stay “on board” a dangerous man will go free, and they will be forever failed by the system. That is the system. That happens every day.” Ends/.
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You would be wrong. Believe it or not, all rape investigations and trials at the moment are dealt with by specialist professionals; from the police, the CPS lawyers who decide on charge, the trial advocates and the judge. 2/.
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Today in an East Midlands Crown Court, a s.18 Wounding was listed for trial, which even of its type, was of the utmost seriousness. 150 Chambers were approached for counsel to defend. No one could be found. There are not enough of us.
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36 out of the 135 Crown Court rooms are not sitting tomorrow in London. That’s the equivalent of Croydon, Harrow, Inner London and Wood Green combined. This includes 5 empty courts at the Old Bailey. REJOICE! Crime in the capital is over.
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For at least 25 years, successive governments have treated criminal law practitioners as a dispensable commodity. Well, your chickens come home to roost tomorrow. We’ve had enough. Try running the courts without us, because we’ve had enough. #barristerstrike.
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This is way beyond the date when the defendant can (at the moment) be lawfully held in custody. An impossible position, created by the desperate lack of advocates on both sides. 4/n.
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Removing the only incentive for offenders to plead guilty, will make the backlog infinitely worse (if that’s possible). “So let me get this straight; 10 years on a plea, or 10 years after a trial. I’ll try my luck with a jury thanks”.
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.@mrjamesob on his @LBC show today, is covering the current state of jury trials and Government proposals to dispense with juries. Should be worth a listen.
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“Since Covid the courts have been moving very fast to catch up” says James Heappey MP. However because of a lack of judges, court staff and advocates, we are still dealing in the Crown Court, with less cases each month than arise. And we told you. And we told you again.
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The Lord Chancellor gives praise to the judiciary and prosecutors but we should not lose sight of the fact that behind each of these guilty pleas were defence lawyers giving proper, professional, sensible advice.
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It is easy to get lost in a fog of statistics, but let this sink in. In the third quarter of 2020, only 6 Crown Court trials were abandoned because of a lack of advocates. By the end of 2021, that figure had increased to 280. We are not crying wolf. There are too few of us.
abandoned trials.no prosecution/defence advocate UP RECORD levels.Crown Court + Mags combined.Over doubling every 6mths.H2 2021 782.H1 2021 317. Crown Court no advocate abandoned #trials .Up nearly 50 fold in a year .Q4 2021 280.Q3 2021 204.Q4 2020 38.Q3 2020 6. @TheCriminalBar
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Apparently Woolwich Crown Court is closing 4 of its 12 courtrooms indefinitely from Monday, due to cuts. Meanwhile this high-security jewel in the Court estate adjourns cases from 2020 to the end of 2025 and beyond. I thought Labour were going to be better than this.
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Justice Minister Mike Freer, last week:.“As well as a world-leading justice system, we have a truly historic courts estate with fascinating histories and stories to tell.”. Snaresbrook Crown last week: in the bar library/mess upstairs in the old canteen.
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Blackadder: “Baldrick, we have a crisis in the Criminal Justice System”. Baldrick: “I have a cunning plan Sir. Reduce the departmental budget, give magistrates double their sentencing powers and cut Crown Court sitting days.”.
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Please take a moment to read this heartfelt message from an HCA in support of @TheCriminalBar
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Getting a bit cross now. You look at the 10pm news; the entire Crown Court estate is bossing it. All these people getting sentenced within days of their offending. Today, more than a quarter of courtrooms were idle. These news reports are the exception, not the reality.
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There are not the courtrooms and there are not the judges. So, if the idea in these pilot areas, is to bump rape cases up the queue, how fair is that for every other victim of crime? How fair is that on the person remanded in custody, presumed innocent? 12/.
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This is a nailed-on example of misleading spin. The courts are not working at anything like ‘full capacity’. Shame on you for putting your name to this tweet.
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So the very legal professionals who successive governments have treated so shabbily, are now to be expected to work around the clock.
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To even think of cutting funding for the MoJ rather than increasing it, is so stupid that it beggars belief.
I'm told by a government source there have been complaints to No10 about the scale of the cuts from 4 departments: . MHCLG (Rayner), DfT (Haigh), Justice (Mahmood). Not all done via the medium of a letter. In some cases, the interventions improved things a +bit+ for cabinet.
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At trial, the jury will be directed, at some length by the judge, about the myths and stereotypes surrounding rape. They will be told that no complainant reacts in the same way. Some may scream out and seek help immediately. 4/.
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This weekend 2 more kids were stabbed to death in the capital. Just as well that there are 33 courts doing nothing on Monday. The Ministry of Justice (ably assisted by the Treasury) are not reflecting your priorities.
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Despite trying over 160 sets, no barrister was available to prosecute the trial. Hoping that a barrister would become free, the judge had intended to put the start of the trial back to this Wednesday. 2/n.
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Before the case gets anywhere near a court, the complainant will have had their evidence videoed, which is played in court, rather than them attending in person. Nowadays, they will have their cross-examination videoed too, months in advance of the trial. 3/.
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For those of you asking perfectly reasonable questions about this case, I'm not ignoring you but I won't answer them because it is on-going.
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What makes those of us at the coal face so angry, is that the government trot out the pandemic and the bar action as the causes of the crisis. Yet as these figures demonstrate, the makings of it were there long before 2020. It’s all on them.
prison facts .31/12/2018.Total Remand population 8,788.Case backlog 32,882. 31/3/2019.Govt cuts court sitting days 15%.Trials delay, Backlogs mount, remand rises . 31/3/2020.Total Remand population 10,043.Awaiting trial 6,605.Convicted unsentenced 3,438.Case backlog 40,817.
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in the interim. The fact is, that there is not the capacity in the system. New investment in the Crown Court system, has been virtually non-existent since the Blair years. Followers know very well that barristers and solicitors are leaving Criminal law in droves. 11/.
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are on bail. They join the long Court queue like everyone else. The queue is so long, because before the pandemic, the government deliberately restricted the number of cases that could be tried. 9/.
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In Wood Green Crown Court today, where 3 out of 10 court rooms were closed, a Judge felt compelled to apologise to the jury saying “Many courtrooms in this building are closed which means I have to conduct other court business during the hours we should be sitting on the trial’.
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Let’s keep this simple. 100,000 new Crown Court cases a year. 58,000 existing backlog, of which 85% are trials. 470 Crown Court courtrooms. 158,000/470 = 336 cases per room/year. 256 working days per year. Each trial lasts four days+. Now do you see the huge problem?.
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This morning in the robing room at Inner London, he’s obviously just resting after a heavy weekend.
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This article nails the lie that the backlog was caused by Covid. “Crown court backlogs grew in the months before the pandemic, because of limits imposed by the Ministry of Justice on how many days judges could sit for.” Superb piece @DannyShawNews.
Crown court where the lights are on but the rooms are almost deserted as barrister shortage bites @DannyShawNews @Telegraph
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100 days of the Government that promised change. The Crown Court sitting on fewer days than before the election, with cuts on the way. No further investment at all in the courts. No backlog plan. Where is the change?.
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Some may bottle it up and say nothing for years. Some may be emotional when recounting the event, some may appear cold and detached. The jury are told in the strongest terms that they must not jump to conclusions based on how the complainant presents, but concentrate on 5/.
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That is you concentrating on your own business. It’s a funny kind of ‘strike’ or ‘industrial action’ where you actually go to work, but decline to do your mate’s job as well. /Ends.
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And another one. Section 18 stabbing - April 2017. Postal requisition - March 2020. Mags hearing - Sept 2020. Warned list - Jan 2021. Listed for trial - August 2021. Ineffective as no counsel available. Trial fixed - July 2022.
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Before Covid, the Crown Court backlog was 40,000 cases. That figure was caused by the Tories cutting sitting days. Unbelievably, we are now at an unprecedented 80,000 cases. Now Labour are themselves cutting sitting days. Uncaring vandalism. Labour first. Victims second.
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Apart from a special Crown Court set up at Loughborough Magistrates’ Court for the pandemic, there has not been a single extra Crown Court building commissioned since before the Clegg/Cameron coalition. And if I am wrong about that, there have been more closed 10/.
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30% of courts not sitting on Monday across the big cities. Brum 14/16.Bristol 8/10.Cardiff/Newp 5/12.Leeds 9/13 (1 Fam).Liverpool 13/20.Manch 8/16.Manch MS 8/10.Newc 11/12. 76/109 = 70% . 33 court rooms sat idle, whilst the wait for a trial is seemingly endless.
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The new PM needs to take an urgent look at criminal courts. For years, we have had nothing but disingenuous spin. That has to stop. Criminal Justice, properly done is expensive. You will need to commit to money that you don’t want to spend. God help you if you don’t.
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However, the defence advocate has another trial that is to be listed tomorrow and there is no one in his firm available to cover this case on Wednesday. At the minute, the earliest the court can accommodate the trial is April 2024. 3/n.
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Rather than spending money on improving the Rwandan Court system, it would be nice if allegations of rape were tried expeditiously, the roof of Nottingham Crown Court would stop leaking and mice could be eradicated from Snaresbrook and Inner London.
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Harrow Crown court closed after dangerous concrete found - BBC News “The Health and Safety Executive says RAAC is now beyond its lifespan and may "collapse with little or no notice". There’s a metaphor there.
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In common with hundreds of criminal barristers, I have spent all of today doing work which pays nothing. My whole Sunday has been spent trying to comply with Orders for cases that will not be tried when they are listed. No Returns please, and quickly.
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Tomorrow, for the second time this week, I am instructed to explain to a judge that there is no Prosecution barrister available. This time, in a s.28 RASSO cross-examination. A well-meaning, politically-driven initiative, except that there are not enough of us to do the work.
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BREAKING NEWS: A Thread: News has reached this account from an ultra reliable source, that the Mr Justice Edis’ report on the Courts’ handling of COVID has been suppressed by the Government, or at the very least, not revealed. Edis J apparently made various recommendations, 1/3.
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Much coverage of this today, but social media activity has been pitiful. The party of Law and Order are content to have utter systemic failure. They are happy that by 2025, the Crown Court backlog will be 53,000. Before Covid, it was historically huge at 39,290. Let that sink in.
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So, when Dominic Raab tells you that the backlog is coming down, do not believe a word of it. We have reached a tipping point, from which there is no prospect of return. /Ends.
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East Midlands Crown Court. s.28 trial involving 2 young children, due to be listed next week, cannot now go ahead because there will be no prosecuting barrister available. 80 sets have been approached. Trial now re-listed for October 2023.
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This is actually disgraceful. Here we are, on the first working day of the new year, with the biggest backlog ever, but firing on only 3/4 of capacity. If this was hospitals or schools, heads would roll.
📈Today, 3 January 2023, 128 out of the 498 Crown Court Rooms in England & Wales will not be sitting. That's 26% of them. #courtstats #CS03012023
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the evidence. Equally, there has been for many years, real limits on the questions about a complainant’s past sexual history, even with the defendant if that be the case. The days of haranguing (or even questioning) a woman because she had a short skirt, drank too much 6/.
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Put simply. The Custody Time Limit time bomb is going off. Defendants in custody have to be tried within 6 months. Judges across the country are now ruling that government’s failure to resolve the bar dispute is essentially their fault and is not a valid reason to extend CTLs.
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A quarter of courts idle. The largest ever backlog. Rape trials delayed for 5 years. Crumbling Court buildings. Looming action by Prosecutors. A Lord Chancellor under investigation. Going well then.
📈Today, 21 December 2022, 125 out of the 498 Crown Court Rooms in England & Wales will not be sitting. That's 25% of them. #courtstats #CS21122022
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Read it and weep. This is but one reason why the current government are going to be annihilated at the GE. Our justice system is in tatters. They have been lying to you all about this for years.
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