Victims must be put first in tackling court backlog crisis

In the early 2000s, I was a young crown prosecutor in Nottingham Magistrates' Court, discussing with colleagues the poor state of the criminal justice system.

- LINSEY FARNSWORTH

A colleague nearing retirement proclaimed: “These are your good old days.” We laughed then, but over the following 20 years, we would come to realise just how right he was.

Anyone who has worked on the front line of the criminal justice system knows that the crown court crisis has been long in the making. Years of underfunding, austerity, Covid and the changing nature of crime have compounded the issue. We now face a backlog of almost 80,000 cases, resulting in some being listed for trial as late as 2030.

The changes proposed by the government, while bold, are sensible and offer a pragmatic solution.

In 2024/25, 4,283 cases were sent to crown court because the defendant elected to do so. This is despite the court having ruled that, based on the prosecution’s case at its most serious, the sentence would not exceed the maximum powers available to the magistrates.