A single court in London has a backlog of delayed cases almost double that for the whole of Wales, warns the city’s victims’ commissioner, as she sees her stalker finally brought to justice.
In an article for The Telegraph, Claire Waxman, London victims’ commissioner, said the justice system was at “breaking point” as the barristers’ strike had pushed already-long backlogs due to the pandemic to record levels.
The average length of time any victim in the capital is now having to wait for their trial to come to court has nearly doubled to 309 days – time that comes on top of the police investigation that may already have taken months, if not years.
London’s backlogs have peaked at nearly 16,000, a quarter of the total in England and Wales and 72 per cent up on pre-pandemic levels, according to new data analysed by Ms Waxman’s research team.
Backlog of 4,105 cases at Snaresbrook
The backlog in one court – Snaresbrook in east London – stands at 4,105 cases, which dwarfs the 2,110 for the entirety of Wales and is more even than the whole of the south west of England at 3,919.
They are delays that Ms Waxman herself experienced first hand this summer as the “obsessed” stalker who has pursued her for almost 20 years was finally convicted last month of breaking a lifetime contact ban.
Her case took a year to come to court and, even with her knowledge from previous cases and work as commissioner, she still lost sleep, and felt stressed and anxious trying to navigate the process.
Ms Waxman anticipated her initial court date in July would be delayed because of the barristers’ strike even though witness carers assured her it was still going ahead. “I had already mentally prepared myself,” she said, an insight other victims may not have had.
When it was delayed and rescheduled, she was given a court date that would have meant cancelling a holiday planned for August, a blunder that added to her stress as she had to argue for an alternative time.
‘It takes over your entire life’
“It takes over your entire life. You worry, you are anxious and stressed for weeks before the trial. You have no idea what the experience is going to be like, what you are going to be asked by the Crown Prosecution Service. You are not in the know at all because you are not important in that process at all,” she said.
“The victim comes in completely in the dark, unlike the defendant who is prepared by the defence team. There is an imbalance there.”
Even when her case came to court, her stalker Elliot Fogel, 47, was ill on the first day so the opening was postponed. “I had been up all night,” said Ms Waxman, fearing it was a deliberate tactic he had used in previous appearances.
Fogel was convicted and faces jail after subjecting her to years of mental torment and fear for her family’s safety with a persistent refusal to leave her alone. This time, he had complained about Ms Waxman to London mayor Sadiq Khan in a brazen flouting of a lifetime restraining order.
The longest delays are those that face victims of violence and sexual offences, where court waits have risen by more than 70 per cent to 355 days and 340 days respectively. For some it will mean a four-year wait from offence to trial, said Ms Waxman, increasing the risk of them “disengaging from the justice process”.
She welcomed the Government’s package to settle the barristers’ strike and particularly the extra money to cover pre-recorded evidence for rape victims to spare them the trauma of facing their attacker in court.
It could take years to reduce backlogs
But she feared it had come “far too late”, meaning it could take years to reduce the backlogs and delays to pre-pandemic levels. There are also worrying smoke signals from within the Criminal Bar Association that there are factions who will vote to continue the strike in Sunday’s ballot in defiance of leadership urgings.
If the strike is not solved by November, the High Court has suggested that judges may not be able to block the release of suspects charged with serious crimes but whose time in custody has reached its legal six-month limit.
The Ministry of Justice said: “Restoring the swift access to justice victims deserve is our absolute priority and we are spending almost half-a-billion pounds to reduce wait times, as well as boosting funding for victim support by at least £460 million over the next three years.
“Our decisive action, including unlimited sitting days, Nightingale courts and increased magistrate sentencing powers, reduced the backlog in the Crown Court from its pandemic-induced peak and has seen magistrates cases return to pre-pandemic levels.”
https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2022/10/08/one-london-courts-case-backlog-double-wales/
