Monday Message 30.09.24
This week sees the start of the legal year on 1st October 2024 and the start of pupillage for the next generation of criminal barristers at the self-employed and employed bar across England and Wales. We would like to welcome all our new members and thank them for being willing, despite the significant pressures of work and the much lower fees than in other areas of law, for choosing a career at the criminal bar. We are grateful to all criminal barristers who will guide and teach the next generation in their roles as pupil supervisors. For our new cohort, from now, until the conclusion of your career, the Criminal Bar Association is here to support you, offering assistance with education, advocacy, career progression and, most importantly, friendship.
The criminal justice system is rarely out of the news. For those criminal barristers who continue to represent the prosecution and defence across England and Wales, we have been hearing headline-grabbing ambitions for years. Plans tend to go wrong because there has been little, if any, joined-up thinking. Releasing more prisoners than we have electronic tags to monitor them with is a small example which demonstrates how well-intentioned attempts to fix a broken system without consultation can end in ridicule.
The criminal justice system has lurched from crisis to crisis for over 20 years. We have to rebuild the foundations because every case matters to the people who are involved in it and that matters to us. Having waited up to four years to know if your case is even being charged, it matters if you can’t have your trial for an additional two years or more. You may lose all faith in the system and give up. We would like there to be focus on the basic questions which we hope will be answered in the upcoming budget. How are the government planning on reducing the crippling waiting times for cases to be heard? How are the government planning to stop the flood of criminal barristers leaving the profession so that there are still experienced, talented, criminal barristers available to conduct criminal trials? How is the court and prison estate going to be administered to ensure that available court rooms are not closed? When offenders are sentenced will there be a safe space for prisoners which protects the public from harm and which rehabilitates the offender?
Dawn Thomas, Chief executive of Northampton Rape Crisis, is rightly concerned about the rise of violence against women. Home Office Figures demonstrate that complaints about domestic violence made to the police that in the East of England area between 2015 and 2023 have risen by 109%. Whilst reflecting on the immense pressure that such increases have and the vitally important services that all the charities which support those women provide, Dawn Thomas explained to the BBC that a major part of the problem is the shortage of criminal barristers to prosecute and defend in these cases. A plan to reduce such violence by 50% can only work if these cases are heard within a six months period at the outside. Crown Court cases where the accused is on bail are not priority cases and often take years. Ms. Thomas said that the criminal justice system is broken and the waiting time for cases to conclude needs to be looked at. We agree.
How will that happen?
We are delighted that our offer to work collaboratively with the agencies within the criminal justice system and government is being given some respect. We have started a constructive process of meetings with Heidi Alexander M.P., the Judiciary, Victims’ Commissioners, The Ministry of Justice, the Crown Prosecution Service, the Bar Council and the Bar Standards Board. Where we are able to effect positive change, we will do so. We have encouraged many experienced criminal practitioners to join the CPS RASSO panel for the first time. We have persuaded many who stopped doing this difficult, traumatic work to re-start. We have offered free training for new practitioners to learn this difficult and complex work. These practitioners have done this, safe in the knowledge that the Crown Prosecution Service is aware of the requirement to increase the fees that they pay barristers to prosecute rape trials so that they earn the same as the barrister defending. If this does not happen, then the rise will rapidly fall. Whilst we use rape as an example, rape is important to recognise that rape is far from the only offence where the prosecution barrister earns less than the defence. There must be parity of all fees. We are playing our part.
We make these offers to help on the strict understanding that a limited pool of advocates is not to be seen as an opportunity to provide the accused and the complainants in all criminal trials with a less expensive, less experienced advocate. For both sides in a criminal trial, the stakes could not be higher. Closure matters. Knowing that everything that could have been done to ensure that you have a fair trial matters. A jury verdict can be the beginning of a new start or it can be devastating. If the public lose faith in the justice system then law and order begin to unravel.
The backlog in trials getting heard in the Crown Court is getting worse every day. We all have the right to see the statistics, the figures, and understand where the problems lie. It is one thing to consider the statistics and be concerned. It is another when, for the last two quarters those statistics have not been published by the MOJ. A visit to the Gov.UK website for HMCTS statistics reveals that the last publication as being 22nd June 2018. They tell us on the website that the release of the latest statistics has been postponed, the quarterly publication has been cancelled and that they hope to work between HMCTS and the MOJ to align accredited statistics and management information methodologies. Although they tell us that any existing statistical deficiencies are unlikely to have a material impact on trends regarding receipts, disposals and the backlog, the lack of publication, whatever the reasons, together with a failure to communicate with our profession that court sitting days are being reduced demonstrates a lack of transparency which makes forward planning for all agencies within the criminal justice system more difficult.
For witnesses, those accused of crime and those who wish to give their account of how they were the victim of a crime, delays in the time that it takes between the commission of an offence, charge, first hearing and completion of a trial have real life consequences. If the backlog is now 70,000 cases, let us consider what that means. If each case involves a complainant and defendant, that would amount to 140,000 people waiting. That is without witnesses or multi defendant/complainant cases. Even at a conservative estimate, the people waiting for justice would fill Wembley Stadium twice over. All those cases involve real people with real fears and worries. We, the criminal bar, are the ones who will be dealing, face to face with those waiting. We know only too well what misery delays cause and the real risks of people giving up. We know that a large number of trials are now being fixed for 2027, and it is inevitable that many cases currently listed for trial in 2024-2026 will have to be vacated due to lack of court time. We do well, always, to remember the faces and stories of those who wait.
It is too easy to brush these cases, these people, aside. It must stop.
Domestic Abuse Protection Notice (DAPN) and Domestic Abuse Protection Order pilot
The Domestic Abuse Protection Notice (DAPN) and Domestic Abuse Protection Order pilot launches from November this year in Greater Manchester, three Boroughs in South London (Croydon, Sutton and Bromley) and with the British Transport Police.
Further details are available in this letter.
“The Court is Ready for you now.”
On the 2nd October 2024, Criminal Law Week and the Criminal Bar Association are delighted to work together to produce a talk for our new and Junior Practitioners which is a practical guide to the early years in the Crown Court. The talk is being given by three highly talented and experienced KC’s, Maya Sikand KC, Nathan Rasiah KC and Mark Gatley KC. This is a zoom lecture at 1800 and we invite you all to link in.
This talk is part of the brilliant series of lectures provided by the Education and Training Committee which is led by Charlotte Newell KC and Paul Jarvis. The other committee members are William Davis, Helen Dawson, Emma Fenn, Aska Fujita, James Gwatkin, Bo-Eun Jung, Sophie Shotton, Monica Stevenson and Sebastian Walker. We owe a huge debt to them all for their first class education programme provided for us all.
Podcasts
Do make sure to listen to the new podcasts which have been uploaded to the CBA Website which deal with the real impact of RASSO cases on all participants. We are grateful to HHJ Peter Collier KC, the former Resident Judge of Leeds Crown Court, “Paul” and “Paula”, real victims of the criminal justice system, Wendy Showell-Nicholas and Jonathan Dunne for contributing to the podcasts. We are enormously grateful to James Gray for organising this series, to our Director of Communications, James Rossiter, and to Adam Batstone for the skill and expertise used to bring these together. Future podcasts will be shorter and will involve members of the criminal bar across all circuits discussing recent developments. If you have any ideas for such a podcast please get in touch with Aaron.
The Independent Review into Bullying and Harassment at the Bar
The CBA response has been lodged and is available for viewing via our website. Thanks must go to the team leading this paper on our behalf, including, Andrew Thomas KC, Grace Ong, James Gray, Soraya Bauwens and Riel Karmy-Jones KC, with my personal thanks and that of the rest of this team to the two individuals who did much of the drafting of this paper, Paramjit Ahluwalia and Diana Wilson.
For the new Officers within the CBA, it has only been a month since the new term began. Thank you to our new appointments Riel Karmy-Jones KC, Vice Chair, Kama Melly KC, Head of RASSO and Chloe Ashley, Assistance Secretary, for their hard work and dedication. Thank you to James Gray and James Oliveira-Agnew for their guidance and support as we progress.
The CBA would not exist nor would it function without our brilliant administrator, Aaron Dolan. Aaron uses his skills, his phenomenal hard work and dedication to make everything seamless for us all. He deserves our respect and admiration always.
Yours,
Mary Prior KC
Chair of The Criminal Bar Association.