MP told moving cases will ease courts backlog

Labour MP Jack Abbott raised the issue of backlogs at Ipswich Crown Court in Parliament this week

The Courts Minister has told an MP the courts backlog in his constituency will be partly reduced by relocating cases to another county.

Ipswich Labour MP Jack Abbott raised the issue in Parliament on Tuesday.

Mr Abbott said it had been reported there were more than 1,000 outstanding cases at Ipswich Crown Court, with the average case taking 249 days to progress, and that 144 cases had been left unresolved for two years or more.

Courts Minister Heidi Alexander said steps were being taken to reduce the backlog, including relocating some cases to Cambridge and increasing the number of sitting days.

She said the government was "fully committed" to reducing Crown Court caseloads.

"To relieve pressure on Ipswich Crown Court in particular, the South East region has begun sending appropriate cases to Cambridge Crown Court for hearing," she said.

"Nationally, we have increased the number of Crown Court sitting days to 106,500 – 500 more than was agreed by the previous Lord Chancellor."

Mr Abbott said: "I am grateful to the Government for working urgently to deal with the unforgivable mess left by the Conservatives.

"It means justice will be delivered for people in Ipswich and Suffolk as we look to fix our broken criminal justice system."

Cambridge Crown Court began receiving Ipswich cases about three weeks ago, and had dealt with about 15 so far, a source told the BBC.

Suffolk-based barrister Simon Spence KC said the courts backlog was getting worse

Barrister Simon Spence KC told BBC Radio Suffolk last month there had been a "huge backlog" of cases going into the Covid pandemic that had not eased since and was actually getting worse.

"When the courts reopened, all of us in the legal profession were hopeful that the government would provide the resources to enable the courts to catch up, but that's simply not happening," he said.

"The national figures, on a daily basis, show there's usually between 15 and 20% of Crown Courts that are available but are not being used and the current prediction is that by next year the number of cases in the backlog will be 80,000, which would be a record high."

He said he could not see a "major problem" with west Suffolk cases being moved to Cambridge.

"However, if you start moving cases around the country, the risk of people not being produced in the right place, at the right time, will go up," he added.

Tim Passmore, Conservative Police and Crime Commissioner for Suffolk, said: "This will only affect those people involved in the Crown Court system in Suffolk who live in the west of the county.

"So the actual travelling distance and time will not be any greater; in fact, it might even be less."

But he said the situation was "not ideal" and that long-term solutions were needed to "make sure that justice is served in a much more timely manner".