By Ashley Young-
The lord chancellor has presented a rebuttal to the Criminal Bar Association’s comments that recorders are sitting fewer days because of budget cuts . saying the true reason is that the number of Crown court cases has fallen.
David Gauke said the true reason recorders were sitting fewer days was because the number of Crown court cases have fallen. Mr. Gauke was responding to MPs questions over letters sent to recorders in relation to limited opportunities to hear crown court cases due to ‘severe budgeting constraints’.
CBA chief Chris Henley QC complained that Crown court capacity was being ‘artificially squeezed’ by government policy, with courtrooms across the country now ‘dark’ because the government refuses to fund them. ‘This is why over and over again you are being hit by fixed trials taken out at the last minute and re-fixed months down the line.’
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Gauke rubbished that statement when speaking to the House of Commons justice committee’s chair, Bob Neill. He said that he and his department ‘do not recognise the language used by the Criminal Bar Association’. He said presiding judges in the western circuit and London/south east circuit wrote to recorders last summer ‘setting out the position for Crown sitting days and encouraging recorders to plan ahead and book their sitting days’.
The letters ‘made clear that the intention is to ensure recorders are deployed as effectively and fairly as possible. Of course, we do not expect to penalise recorders who do not sit their “minimum” number of days through no fault of their own’.
Gauke said the number of Crown court sitting days is decided in light of how much work the court has. ‘The number of sittings in the Crown court has therefore reduced as the number of cases has gone down in recent years. The most recent published statistics show that the number of outstanding cases in the Crown court (and magistrates’ courts) continues to fall, and that average wait time for Crown court defendants is the lowest since 2014,’ he added.
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