Shropshire Star

Star comment: Long trial wait is also sentence

Crime on Thursday, trial on Friday, hanged on Saturday.

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An exaggeration of the rapidity of the administration of justice in years long ago, perhaps, but not by that much.

In any event, compared to the past, things today move at a snail's pace. Does it matter? Is it not better to take your time to ensure due processes are gone through and a considered and just result is arrived at in the end?

It does matter, and delay without good cause does not improve justice. There's that old saying that justice delayed is justice denied, and on that basis defendants across our region are getting a raw deal.

Figures from the Ministry of Justice show the average time between a crime being committed and the case being completed at Wolverhampton Crown Court is 556 days. Well over a year then. Compared with some other places, that's super quick.

If you are unlucky enough to be involved in a case going through Stafford Crown Court, you can expect a wait of 633 days.

Shrewsbury Crown Court is incredible. There we are talking about an 815-day delay.

Now put yourself in the shoes of somebody in the witness box at Shrewsbury Crown Court, being cross examined.

"Witness A, what were you doing 815 days ago?" In the normal course of events, you would have no idea. In the exceptional course of events which comes with being involved in a criminal trial, you will know what happened, and as a case being heard at Crown Court will generally be a serious crime, the very seriousness and drama will give you a memory.

How reliable that memory will be after 815 days is open to question, to say the least. You may think you can remember everything as if it was yesterday. But it wasn't yesterday.

Maybe at some point in the future the view will be taken that any conviction which has significantly relied on recall memory at such a distance is inherently suspect. In such circumstances non-perishable evidence, like CCTV footage, becomes all the more important.

Objections to these delays do not rest solely on the dangers to justice. To keep accused people in limbo for months while serious charges hang over them is unfair, and is a sentence in itself, which is doubly unfair if they are eventually acquitted.

They may, for instance, have been suspended from their jobs pending the outcome.

The justice system has been gradually dismantled before our eyes and the consequence is that it is now falling apart – and that's a crime.