There has never been a better time to be a criminal in Britain

With our courts in severe crisis, it's no wonder offenders are running amok

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Shoplifting is now an epidemic, with reports of almost 17,000 incidents a day, while attacks on shopkeepers are up by 50 per cent. Reports of violence against women and girls have surged so alarmingly in the past few years that the police have declared it a "national emergency".

And just last month, teenagers rampaged with knives through a party at a primary school and thugs armed with foot-long machetes were caught on camera doing battle on a Tube station platform in front of horrified commuters.

This is the bleak reality we all face when it comes to crime, and the criminal justice system in this country has never been in a worse state.

Trials are now being set for November 2028 as courts are laden with crippling backlogs of cases, leaving victims, witnesses and defendants waiting years for justice.

Last year, more than 4,500 criminal prosecutions had to be abandoned because a key witness had failed to show up for the trial or withdrawn their support for the case altogether.

A guilty defendant can push their case to trial, hoping that it will fall apart during the months or years of waiting. And the crimes we see on the news happen because those involved apparently do not fear the consequences. Has there ever been a better time to be a criminal? The public has been let down for years - decades, even - by the failures of successive governments to put justice, and particularly justice spending, on the same footing as education and the NHS. Yet it is a cornerstone of a functioning society.

Last week's spring statement was more of the same, as Chancellor Rachel Reeves delivered her projections for justice spending. There was nothing like the kind of money that is needed to fix our broken system and, equally, no outraged headlines about that.

Managed decline