Editor, Solicitors Journal

Legal aid chaos

20 Jul 2015News

Chaotic scenes are being reported nationwide as police stations and courts are said to be struggling to cope with the legal aid strikes, in effect from 1 July.

Just three days after solicitors decided to not take on any more legal aid work, a partner at Bradford-based firm Petherbridge Bassra Solicitors, Ray Singh, told local paper Telegraph & Argus that a number of defendants have already been released from the area's police stations without being interviewed because no solicitors were available to represent them.

Then, on 8 July, regional lawyers told the BBC their action was 'causing chaos' in some courts and police custody suites, despite the Ministry of Justice saying courts were proceeding as usual.

The BBC's Victoria Derbyshire programme attended a court case in the north of England where one defendant said that without a solicitor he did not know what to say or do. Merseyside Police was also said to be experiencing issues.

The latest report of regional chaos comes from South Yorkshire-based paper the Star, which reported 'cells being left "chock-a-block" as cases back up'.

Scenes are surely set to worsen as this week criminal barristers also voted in favour of no new work and no returns to support solicitors' action. The Lord Chancellor, Michael Gove, said he was 'disappointed' members of the Criminal Bar Association had voted in their ballot to take action, calling it 'unnecessary.'

He said the government 'want to work constructively to ensure that we have a healthy engagement with the Bar'. That relationship is sure to be slightly deconstructed now the Bar has chosen to support its solicitor brethren. Earlier this month, the president of the London Criminal Courts Solicitors' Association, Jonathan Black, said Gove had shown favouritism to barristers when negotiating legal aid fee cuts.

Legal News desk contact: editorial@solicitorsjournal.com

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