MORE ON LAST MINUTE ADJOURNMENTS: SERIOUS CASES PULLED FROM THE LIST AT THE LAST MOMENT (AND CLAIMANTS HAVING TO PAY FOR THE PRIVILEGE OF EXTENDING THE LISTING PERIOD)
I am continuing to collect issues relating to listing. Doing this by a serious of posts on the topic. You can get a flavour of the problems by some of the issues raised on Twitter over the past few days. It is difficult to be more methodical. However the key point is not to take this for granted. Where possible publicise and complain. As ever I welcome comments (in the comments section below). This can include comments from those who work in the courts service – who should have a right of reply.
RECENT COMMENTS ON TWITTER
Jonathan Dunne.
“3 handed s.18 – brain injury – offence 9/16. PTPH 11/16. First Trial date 6/17 (7 months later). All ready, but adj due to no court time. Re-fixed then for this coming Monday (another 11 months). Now adj further – no court time – to 1/19. An absolute disgrace”
The Secret Barrister
“I could quite literally have stuffed Chapter 5 with dozens of examples of this, if not hundreds. What an appalling way to treat witnesses and defendants. And all because the government won’t pay relatively small sums to keep enough courts open to hear trials.”
“I had a 5-handed 5-weeker pulled the other week.”
View from the North
“This, I am afraid, is completely the norm. A daily event that cases, serious cases and sex cases, get pulled from the list for trial the night before. Not warned lists either. Fixtures.”
Matthew Buckland
“So far this year I have been instructed in 6 trials. A plea,a 3 month trial,a weeks trial, 2 cases pulled the night before they were supposed to start and an 8 weeker pulled 3 weeks before it was listed. In each instance the system could not provide a judge despite having a court”
David Beckett
“I’d say this wouldn’t happen to someone requiring non urgent surgery for something painful, but that is possible. It seems the delays in the court system are far more widespread than any other public service and tolerated in a way that would be unthinkable in schools or hospitals.”
“When I say tolerated, I mean by society at large, not by the people working within the CJS. The lack of publicity for these delays and those suffering immensely from them is astonishing.”
Temple Brief