Family and Friends Forum

Also adjourned because of presentence report is still in draft version. They've had since November to sort this. The probation service are completely incompetent

I volunteer at my local law courts, supporting witnesses and the reasoning behind adjournments does vary - lack of appropriate paperwork being submitted, indisposal of a solicitor, if the defendant is on remand sometimes they say they are ill so can't come although this was more common during covid - and the most common reason of all, that far more cases are scheduled for a specific date than could possibly have enough time to be heard in a day if someone somewhere had used their common sense creating the court diary. That is common at both plea hearings (which should be dealt with fairly quickly) and sentencings which take longer. The last time i was there we almost had a riot because several traffic offence trials were adjourned due to lack of time - one defendant had come on the train from Scotland to the south coast at a huge cost to himself so was not at all happy about being told to go away and return on another date. Some witnesses are back for trials that have already been adjourned once or twice already.

Also in my court building there are 2 crown courts and 5 magistrates. When I began volunteering they were nearly all in use every day but nowadays there is often nothing in crown and we're lucky if 2 magistrates are open plus they have halved the number of court ushers to save money which impacts efficiency hugely, It is an absolute shambles. There is a bit of negotiating at the start of the day where the order of cases is discussed and certain circumstances can get precedence over others so it isn't necessarily the order that is printed on the schedule and everyone is asked to arrive at the same time which I have always thought was ridiculous.