No short-term fix to cut court trials backlog, says leading prosecutor

Outgoing Director of Public Prosecutions Max Hill KC says a shortage of barristers and judges is creating problems.

Figures from HM Courts and Tribunal Services show more than 65,000 cases are awaiting trial in Crown Court (Steve Parsons/PA) (PA Archive)

The record backlog of Crown Court trials will not be dealt with in the next year, the director of public prosecutions has said.

Max Hill KC, who is stepping down this month after five years in the role, said a shortage of barristers and judges was preventing the number of outstanding cases being cut.

“We’re at an all-time high,” Mr Hill told the BBC. “The backlog is not going to be removed next month, even next year. We all have to understand that.

“There are only so many courts. The judiciary is slightly expanded, but there are only so many people who are available for appointment as judges.”

It's not as though we've got people in the office who we can suddenly send to court

Max Hill KC

Latest figures from HM Courts and Tribunal Services showed more than 65,000 cases are awaiting trial in Crown Court.

He said the Crown Prosecution Service (CPS) was struggling daily to find enough barristers “physically available” to prosecute in trials.

“It’s not as though we’ve got people in the office who we can suddenly send to court,” he said. “All of our own advocates are fully deployed in court.

“They are hugely overburdened – the number of individual live cases on a prosecutor’s laptop today is far greater than I would like it to be.”

He said there was no “overarching solution to the backlog that will resolve it in a few months or even a year’s time”.

“I’ve waited to see whether there was a system-wide solution of reducing the backlog by a certain percentage year-on-year or even month-on-month,” he said.

“I think that that is simply not possible. The alternative is what we have to move to now, which is to say, of the charged cases, these are the ones which will have higher priority going forward.”

He said rape should be the top priority, with four times as many cases awaiting trial than before the pandemic.

“I wouldn’t blame any victim of rape for saying ‘I can only wait so long, I can only put my life on hold for so long’,” he said.

“That is why, alongside pre-trial custody cases, I put adult rape at the very top of what I think must be prioritised, because it is damaging for individuals.”

We recognise the devastating impact of rape and are doing more than ever before to ensure victims feel supported at all stages of the criminal justice process

MoJ spokesperson

A Ministry of Justice spokesperson said: “We recognise the devastating impact of rape and are doing more than ever before to ensure victims feel supported at all stages of the criminal justice process.

“This includes quadrupling funding for specialist support services compared to 2010, announcing new legislation to ensure rapists spend their entire sentence behind bars and a new 24/7 support line for victims of rape and sexual abuse and the national rollout of pre-recorded cross-examination.

“At the same time we are running our courts at full throttle with no limit on Crown Court sitting days for a third year running.”