There are nearly 62,000 outstanding cases in the Crown courts. Behind that figure are tens of thousands of people – victims and defendants – waiting for justice, with their lives on hold as their day in court creeps towards them.
As a criminal defence solicitor and member of the Crown Courts Improvement Group (CCIG), I work alongside representatives from key agencies in the criminal justice system to ensure that cases are dealt with as efficiently as possible, to cut the court backlogs and reduce delay in bringing cases to trial.
The working group has been innovative in its approach with a focus on identifying and removing impediments to an effective criminal justice system.
One initiative, led by the Crown Prosecution Service (CPS), that will significantly and positively affect the work of criminal defence solicitors is the phased roll out of a new model to allow the early provision – at the Magistrates’ Court first hearing stage - of the full case material on which the prosecutor’s decision to charge was based.
This will, crucially, allow defence solicitors to gain a comprehensive view of the real issues in a case, rather than just the case summary. It will help us to take early detailed instructions from clients, enable our clients to enter informed pleas as early as possible, as well as allowing us to case manage more effectively. The roll out is expected to reach 10 out of 14 CPS areas by the end of the year. It marks a considerable step forward in CCIG’s progress to achieve our shared objectives.
Sadly, the drive for early preparation has not been met by the additional funding recommended in Lord Bellamy’s report, beyond the general increase in funding that he called for (see para 9.17). The ability of defence practitioners to take full advantage of these changes will therefore be limited until such time as the funding called for by Lord Bellamy has been allocated.
There is much still to be done before we have restored and improved an ailing, dysfunctional criminal justice system. Further investment across the whole system is needed. However, this ongoing work shows how involving representatives from across the system can create real opportunities to find solutions.
Richard Atkinson is deputy vice president of the Law Society and a member of its criminal law committee
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