Crown court delays

July to September 2022 criminal court statistics have revealed a year-on-year increase of 69 per cent in the number of crown court cases outstanding for more than two years. Law Society president Lubna Shuja described this as “unacceptable”. The Society warned these figures represent the highest recorded number waiting this long since reporting began in 2014. The crown courts backlog grew by 6 per cent against the last quarter, which may be partly due to an uptick in ineffective trials caused by the criminal barristers strike during this time.