Courts to tackle rape delays
Senior judge wants defendants who’ve waited three years tried this summer
A two-year delay in scheduling more than 180 rape trials is a “serious stain” on the criminal justice system, the senior presiding judge of England and Wales said yesterday.
Lord Justice Edis announced plans to bring almost all of these cases — around 6% of the 3,355 outstanding rape prosecutions — to trial before the end of July. More recent prosecutions may have to be delayed as a result.
The 181 untried rape cases — some involving multiple defendants — were sent to Crown Courts across England and Wales in or around the summer of 2021. All the defendants were on bail. Because of Covid backlogs, trials were not scheduled until the summer or autumn of 2022. They were delayed for another year or more because of strike action by members of the Criminal Bar Association. Each time, these cases were pushed to the back of the queue while defendants in custody were prioritised.
Other factors had contributed to the delays. Some cases involved retrials after a jury had failed to agree.
In one case, a defendant had apparently jumped bail after being allowed to travel abroad. There were reports, which could not be confirmed, that he had died.
Even now, some cases will have taken three years to come to trial — two years longer than the current average for rape defendants on bail. But complainants and witnesses have had to wait even longer because these figures do not include the time taken by police and prosecutors to investigate allegations and bring charges. That can add a further year or more.
At a briefing yesterday, the judge said:
This is an unacceptable state of affairs from the point of view of the complainants, the witnesses, the defendants and justice generally…
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.
As senior presiding judge, Edis manages court business across England and Wales. He has instructed resident judges at some 80 court centres to fix dates by the summer for all rape cases that were sent to the Crown Court before the end of 2021. Prosecution and defence advocates will be expected to give these cases priority over other commitments.
A few trials have already been fixed for August or September. Given the difficulty in obtaining legal representation, these dates will not be disturbed.
Action to deal with delayed rape cases was recommended by the Crown Court improvement group, which brings together organisations from across the criminal justice system.
More productive
Edis told reporters that the system was much more productive than it had been before the pandemic. The total number of sitting days in the Crown Court during this financial year will be above 107,000. That compares with 87,000 in the year before the pandemic, when the government restricted the number of sitting days in what was seen as an attempt to keep prisoner numbers down.
Edis said:
The system has recovered its ability to be productive remarkably well. But that still gives us this big backlog of cases left over from the difficult times we’ve been through…
We’re now in a position to try to make some choices. We’re not in a hand-to-mouth crisis…
We will be asking for the support of the criminal bar whose service here is essential to the achievement of justice in helping us to deal with these very old cases which really are long overdue.
A survey of Criminal Bar Association members last month found that almost two-thirds of those who are accredited to do rape and serious sexual assault cases would not be reapplying for a place on the specialist list. Almost half said poor pay was a reason while a third mentioned wellbeing.
More generally, Edis called for long-term investment. “I think there is scope for thinking about whether we have the right number of court buildings in the right places,” he said. But he was “cautiously optimistic” about the ability of the courts to cope with the rising number of cases — particularly sexual offence allegations — that the courts were now receiving.
Comment
It is unusual for a senior judge to brief reporters on the nuts and bolts of the criminal justice system. But court listing is regarded by the judiciary as a core judicial function. If justice delayed is justice denied, people are entitled to know what steps are being taken by the judges to limit injustices.
One government after another has failed to heed the ever more pressing need for public funding of essential professional services in this area. I speak drawing upon decades of personal and representative engagement in the struggle where the brick wall we all confronted reflected the obduracy and calculated dismissal of both principal parties. I am relieved in the extreme no longer for several years no longer to have to shoulder that - largely thankless- burden. There is more: experienced ever increasingly during my forty seven (sic) years of practice was the syndrome where up to charging there had been no sense or sign of urgency visible to the naked eye but then once a case had impacted with the court face all of a sudden - whatever the absence of disclosure- the case HAD to to accelerate towards disposal with the earlier delay by then have made the task of the defence doubly complex ( witnesses harder to trace, their memories vaguer, cctv footage having been destroyed- you name it). Nonetheless there absolutely then HAD to be an unconscionable gallop to the finish line. Add to that already exasperating scenario the wilful blaming of “the defence” (always a handy scapegoat) and austerity but - as I suspect also ideological - driven underfunding of all service providers and no wonder “stain” on the cause of justice is the noun most readily to hand. Okay: rant over- you can all come out again now.