Crown court backlog hits new record high with more than 64,000 cases waiting

The backlog at crown courts in England and Wales continues to “spiral out of control” as it hit a new record high, with more than 64,000 trials not yet resolved, official figures show.

Data published on Thursday by HM Courts and Tribunal Services shows 64,015 crown court cases were open in July, up by 402 compared to June – and 4,654 higher than the same time last year, a 7 per cent increase.

The figures represent the sixth consecutive monthly rise – and will come as another blow to the government’s hopes of achieving its target to cut the backlog to 53,000 by March 2025, despite it already being branded “unambitious” by solicitors.

The backlog has soared in recent years, rising from 37,000 to 55,000 in a single year in 2020, as the coronavirus pandemic exacerbated delays in the justice system.

The vast backlog has been partly blamed for direly low prosecution levels for rape, with the number of rape cases stuck in the backlog quadrupling between 2020 and 2023 – and taking an average of two years to complete in court, according to the charity Rape Crisis.

The number of cases waiting to be heard in magistrates’ courts – where nearly all cases will have initial hearings – also rose by more than 6,000 in July, hitting more than 350,000.

“The terrible backlogs in our criminal courts continue to spiral out of control,” said Lubna Shuja, president of the Law Society of England and Wales, adding that the fact they “continue to get worse, not better, is very alarming.”

Ms Shuja said that the government’s target “now looks like wishful thinking” after “another year of failure in tackling the backlogs”, and warned that “efforts to tackle crime and keep communities safe will fail if these backlogs aren’t addressed”.

“Victims, witnesses and defendants are having to wait years with their lives in limbo before cases come to court. This is unacceptable and many are understandably losing faith in the criminal justice system,” she said.

“Urgent investment is needed across the entire criminal justice system to prevent it from collapsing. There are crumbling courts, overwhelmed prisons, vast legal aid deserts and a shortage of lawyers and judges. Years of neglect of our criminal justice system can’t be put right overnight but continued inaction will only result in its collapse.”

At the start of the year, the then director of public prosecutions Max Hill KC told The Independent that the criminal justice system was “overloaded”, and that victims were dropping out of cases because they were “unable to stay with a process that takes months or years”.

Those accused of crimes are also being kept in limbo for vast periods, with the number of people held in prison on remand hitting a 50-year high, MPs on the Commons justice committee warned in January.

This, in turn, is exacerbating issues of overcrowding at some prisons which hold those awaiting trial, with the BBC’s Newsnight reporting this week that data obtained via a freedom of information request showed at least 150 people had been kept on remand for five years or more while awaiting trial.

A Ministry of Justice spokesperson said: “The first job of any government is to keep the public safe and more people are being brought before the courts to face justice, with the crown court sitting for more than 100,000 days last year – the highest level since 2017-18.”

However, a senior justice source told The Independent that this remains “woefully short” of the 110,000 days recommended by the justice select committee last April, and that the backlog is now twice as large as it was back in 2018.

The spokesperson continued: “We are pushing forward with measures which are helping hundreds more cases be heard every month, like lifting the cap on the number of days courts can sit for a third year, keeping Nightingale Courts open, and investing more in our courts – including in magistrates’ courts where more than 90 per cent of criminal cases are dealt with.”