Issue 377  21st December 2024

More victims will see justice thanks to an extra 2,000 Crown Court sitting days announced by the Lord Chancellor today (Tuesday 17 December). This will see courts sit for a total of 108,500 days this year – the highest figure in almost a decade – helping to tackle the court backlog, as the government ploughs ahead with bold and ambitious reforms to tackle the ongoing crisis in the Crown Court. The backlog in our courts has been growing significantly since the pandemic and currently stands at over 73,000 cases, delaying perpetrators having their day in court and victims getting justice...

As well as adding more sitting days, the government is also planning once-in-a-generation reforms of the courts system. Earlier in the month, it was announced that Sir Brian Leveson will be conducting an independent review into the criminal courts, to identify major reforms. These reforms could include “intermediate courts”, where cases too serious for magistrates’ courts but not serious enough for the Crown Court could be heard by a judge, flanked by magistrates...

Victims will get swifter access to justice thanks to a multi-million pound investment in the criminal legal aid sector as part of the government’s latest step to ensure justice is done and our streets are safe. Under proposals announced by the Lord Chancellor, Shabana Mahmood MP, today (Thursday 19 December) criminal legal aid solicitors will receive up to £92 million more a year to help address the ongoing challenges in the criminal justice system and get justice for victims. Access to justice is a cornerstone of our justice system and is fundamental to getting criminal cases through the courts – getting the system moving again for victims. This 12 per cent increase in funding, on top of the 12 per cent announced in response to the Criminal Legal Aid Independent Review, will ensure justice can be done while strengthening the entire sector for the future. It also lays the groundwork for longer-term reform of the criminal legal aid market. Taking on legal aid cases should be a simple process for solicitors and barristers and those reliant on legal aid need to have quick and effective access to it, no matter where they are...

In November, the government announced a £24m injection into police station and youth court fees as part of its Crime Lower consultation response. Those uplifts came into force on 6 December 2024, raising solicitor criminal legal aid fees by 12% since the Criminal Legal Aid Independent Review (CLAIR). Today’s announcement of an additional 12% uplift will therefore take the total uplift to 24% since CLAIR for criminal legal aid solicitors over this Parliament...

Ministers have committed to working with the Bar leadership through the Criminal Legal Aid Advisory Board on longer-term reform of the criminal legal aid market...

Lawyers are refusing to represent people charged with certain crimes amid a crisis over solicitors’ pay, with one burglary suspect turned away by 12 legal firms, the Law Society president has said. Richard Atkinson, who leads the organisation representing more than 200,000 solicitors in England and Wales, said its members lost money if they took such cases and warned that other crimes, including lower level sexual offences, also risked becoming uneconomic for practitioners...

But Atkinson said the profession was edging towards a situation where swathes of cases would be abandoned because defendants could not get legal representation. “I was talking to a colleague a few months ago, and he said to me someone came into the office and said ‘I’m charged with burglary, and I need representation. I’ve been to 11 firms, and they said they can’t represent me.’ And he had to say: ‘Well, I’m afraid that’s now 12’,’” said Atkinson. “Because burglary is the worst paid category of case in the crown court for solicitors, it is a clear loss-maker. Firms can’t afford to take on loss-making cases on the basis that they’ll trade better ones because the better ones aren’t good enough to allow you to do that. It won’t just be burglary. People will say ‘I’m not doing this type of case because I can’t afford to do it. I can’t subsidise the government by making a loss on this.” However, he said it was “not necessarily commonplace”. Asked about other crimes, Atkinson said: “Sexual offences that fall in category D [categories run from A to K in descending order of seriousness] are not well-paid. I’m certainly aware of difficulties finding advocates for category D offences already”...

The Council has today published a new guideline for judges and magistrates sentencing strangulation and suffocation offences in England and Wales. The offence of strangulation or suffocation and its racially or religiously aggravated version are very serious offences that are highly dangerous to victims. The offences were created by the Domestic Abuse Act 2021 and came into force on 7 June 2022.

The purpose of the guideline, which has been subject to public consultation, is to make sure that those who seek to harm others in this way receive sentences that reflect the seriousness of these offences. The courts will start using the new guideline when it comes into effect on 1 January 2025. It will apply to all offenders aged 18 and over who are sentenced on or after that date.

A 77-year-old environmental activist will spend Christmas in prison despite having been released on an electronic tag, because the authorities cannot find an electronic device small enough to fit her wrists. Gaie Delap, a retired teacher and a Quaker from Bristol, was jailed in August, along with four co-defendants, for her part in a campaign of disruptive Just Stop Oil protests on the M25 in November 2022. She was released in November to serve the rest of her sentence under a home detention curfew. But the private company contracted to fit the tag to Delap was unable to attach one to her ankle because of a health condition and did not have a tag available small enough to fit wrists her size. With no device monitoring her, an arrest warrant was issued two weeks ago. Delap has been at home with her suitcase packed since then, waiting for police to knock on her door. On Friday evening, police arrived and took her to Eastwood Park prison in Gloucestershire...

Delap, who has various health problems, could not wear an ankle tag because she was at risk of deep-vein thrombosis. The same issue with tagging arose when she was on bail and a “doorstep curfew” was agreed from 7pm to 7am, with random checks incorporated. Such an alternative was not offered this time...