Autumn Budget Statement from the Criminal Bar Association 

Whilst we recognise that there has been an overall increase in the budget for the criminal justice system it will not make a difference to those waiting for justice unless there are court rooms to hear the cases and criminal barristers to prosecute and defend them. 

We await with interest the information from the Government following the Budget as to how it intends to rebuild the criminal justice system, how it will invest to reduce delays for those awaiting trial in serious criminal trials and how it will invest to ensure that there are sufficient criminal barristers to prosecute and defend them. 

A failure to invest in the criminal barristers and solicitors is a failure to value victims of crime and a failure to protect us all from the harm caused by a broken criminal justice system. 

The 81,000 serious crimes which form the basis of the cases which are waiting to get on may take years to be reached. They involve witnesses, those accused of crimes and victims of crime. That means at least 160,000 people are waiting to be heard. And it will only get worse.  

There is no point in talk of investing in police investigations, in the protection of women and girls, in “swift justice”  and building new prisons if the essential part of the justice system, the trial process, is so underfunded that by the time a trial can take place, the witnesses have walked away. If six years or so are allowed to pass before a matter comes to trial, even more will do so. 

It is not just the complainants who walk away, it is also witnesses. Criminal Solicitors’ firms are walking away. Criminal Barristers are walking away.

Mary Prior KC, Chair. 

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