Nearly 200 “very old” rape instances could possibly be delivered to trial by the tip of July, a senior decide has introduced.
Lord Justice Edis, senior presiding decide for England and Wales, has 181 instances in his sights, a few of that are retrials and a few contain alleged victims who’re youngsters.
The instances have been at crown courts throughout England and Wales since 2021, a delay that’s “an unacceptable state of affairs from the point of view of the complainants, the witnesses, the defendants, and justice generally”, the decide stated.
He added: “The system suffered some shocks over the last four years because of the pandemic, we didn’t used to have this problem, and the current situation is the product of those shocks.”
There have been 3,355 rape instances awaiting trial as of January, with about six per cent of these classed as “very old”, Lord Justice Edis stated.
The Court of Appeal decide, who oversees main crown court docket judges, stated: “It’s a small proportion of the total number of rape cases that we have to deal with that end up getting this old but, nevertheless, it’s a significant injustice because the system has recovered its capacity.
“We at the moment are ready to make some selections. We should not in a hand-to-mouth disaster now.”
Labour’s shadow justice secretary Shabana Mahmood welcomed the “vital intervention” but added: “It’s finally the duty of presidency to make sure a practical prison justice system, and their abysmal failure has led to a report backlog of instances.
“It should not fall to judges to ensure that rape victims do not wait for years to have their cases heard.”
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The information comes following a Criminal Bar Association survey displaying greater than 60 per cent of barristers accepted to conduct rape and critical sexual offences instances stated they might not reapply to the specialist checklist to proceed.
Commenting on this, Lord Justice Edis stated: “Our system requires a substantial supply of skilled and experienced advocates in all our offence categories, but nowhere more than in rape and other serious sexual offences.
“If that offer is threatened, for no matter motive, our capability to cope with the work is inhibited and that may be a vital limiting issue.
“We hope that there will be work done, investment made in the long-term, in order to sustain that necessary supply of skilled people working in the system.
“They are a really beneficial asset and it is disappointing to learn that survey, however I hope that that survey may be the beginning of efforts to place the scenario proper, as a result of we will not run the system with out advocates.”
Source: information.sky.com”