PARLIAMENTARY DEBATE
Victims of Sexual Violence: Court Delays - 16 December 2024 (Commons/Commons Chamber)

I thank Mr Speaker for granting time for a debate on court delays and victims of sexual violence.

I do not underestimate the challenges that the Minister faces. As I will hopefully draw attention to this evening, the task at hand is considerable, but overturning this situation is owed to survivors. This topic is emotive and cuts deep. Justice is a British value that so many in our country live their lives by—a strong sense of what is right and what is wrong. But justice is also a principle that we should all be able to fall back on. When we fall victim to crime and seek redress, a timely and supported road to justice should be expected. That is a fundamental element of our social contract in Britain.

The situation that thousands of women and girls find themselves in today is far from that. The road to justice for so many victims of rape and serious sexual offences is long and falls desperately short of what is owed to them.

Does my hon. Friend share my concern that too many victims of domestic abuse face years of court delays? It is an issue that constituents have raised with me. Those delays have consequences. One told me that her life is on hold, while her abuser is free to go on with his. She feels afraid to go out in her home town in case she is seen by him. Does my hon. Friend agree that it is essential that we not only address court delays but implement fast-track processes for these cases, to ensure that justice is served promptly?

My hon. Friend could not have put it better. That is the basis of this whole debate.

According to the quarterly statistics published last week, the number of sexual offence cases waiting to go to Crown court stands at 11,574—up 44.5% on the same time in 2022. Just two weeks ago, the Director of Public Prosecutions said that the delays are as bad as or probably worse than he has ever known them to be.

I commend the hon. Lady on concentrating on this issue, and on securing this debate so that we can all support her. Does she agree that while every victim deserves their day in court, some cases should get priority, in deference to the distress and anxiety involved? Sexual violence crimes must have that designation, and both the Crown Prosecution Service and judges should be able to streamline proceedings. We are all looking for the Minister to come back with a positive answer to hurry the system up.

I thank the hon. Gentleman for that intervention. I think we will hear something from the Minister on what the Government intend to do and what we will hopefully get somewhere down the road.

These are women and girls who are sitting at the feet of trauma. Survivors face the enormous challenge of having to relive their experiences in court, and each day until then. The lengthy delays, which can be anywhere from two to five years, draw out this experience. I fear that more and more women and girls are losing faith in our criminal justice system—a system that is supposed to protect them. According to the Criminal Bar Association, the number of victims abandoning prosecutions increased 41% in the first half of this year compared with the first six months of 2023.

Does my hon. Friend agree that these delays can have unintended consequences, such as a change in bail conditions? If a victim happened to move, the bail condition to avoid the area may not apply any more, and they would have to go back to the police and back to court. It can become a horrible maelstrom, bringing everything back all the time for the victim.

It causes unnecessary and troublesome complexities for people who are already facing so much in their lives. We really cannot emphasise that enough.

In the final quarter of 2022, almost 70% of rape survivors withdrew from the justice system. The situation at present is nothing short of a crisis.

It is estimated that the number of rape victims who pull out of prosecutions before trial has more than doubled in five years. One reason given is a shortage of lawyers—for both prosecution and defence—willing to take on rape and serious sexual assault cases, because they say that cases are becoming increasingly complex and that they are poorly paid in comparison with other areas of the law. Does my hon. Friend agree that it may be time for us to look at whether the lawyers doing this kind of work should be properly paid?

I hope that the review that will take place will look at everything and cover every aspect. I believe its aim is to be comprehensive and to bring justice and fairness to everybody involved in the system.

It is imperative that attention is drawn to the nature of postponements, which bear down on the already fragile mental health of victims. I have heard heartbreaking accounts of court dates being moved on the morning of the scheduled trial. Imagine waiting in anticipation for that day of justice, exerting every ounce of mental strength, just for it to be snatched away on the day of the trial. I invite colleagues to imagine that happening not once, but again and again.

There is also an important public safety element, which is too often overlooked. Many perpetrators are not placed on remand, and, when there is a delay to a case being heard, someone who could be guilty is walking the streets. Returning to the issue of fairness, there is a deep injustice to that: victims must look over their shoulder each and every day and have their lives put on hold, while perpetrators may be able to cling to their freedom for years.

I am cognisant that a number of factors have driven this enormous backlog, including the pandemic, industrial action by criminal barristers, a lack of capacity in the legal profession and an increase in the number of complex cases entering the system. While many of these factors are well known, it has also been brought to my attention that defence barristers may be able to generate a postponement by requesting a last-minute adjournment as a delay tactic. I would be grateful if the Minister committed to looking at that issue in more depth. We need greater scrutiny of last-minute adjournments, which are having such devastating impacts on victims.

In the summer, I wrote to the Justice Secretary on postponements and delays, and was grateful for the response that I received from the then Minister of State for Courts and Legal Services, my right hon. Friend the Member for Swindon South (Heidi Alexander), in which I was assured that reducing waiting times for victims of serious sexual offences is a priority for our Government. The Minister advised me that the Government were carefully considering the best way to fast-track rape cases, and were working with the judiciary to understand how that may be achieved. I would be grateful if the House received an update on the Government’s progress in delivering that manifesto commitment.

Does my hon. Friend agree that it is important that we keep the blame for the backlogs exactly where it belongs? Defence barristers are doubtless doing the best they possibly can for their clients in some extremely difficult circumstances, and, as my hon. Friend the Member for Wolverhampton West (Warinder Juss) says, they are paid poorly relative to other members of their profession. The most significant problems in the court system have been caused by 14 years of chronic Tory underfunding of the court system itself, the Crown Prosecution Service and the prison system, which means that: far too few people are held on remand; people are being bailed when they should not be; people are being dealt with very swiftly to try to deal with custody time limits; and there are so many problems baked into the system as it stands that victims are being wholly failed. We need to ensure the system is invested in and reformed in such a way that those problems do not continue to be exacerbated, one of the most enormous ones being—

Order. If the hon. Lady wants to contribute to the debate she always has the opportunity to ask the Member in charge and the Minister, but interventions must be shorter than that.

My hon. Friend makes a very good point. I am sure we will hear from the Minister that the Labour Government have a lot of plans to hopefully right all those wrongs.

In recent days, we have heard the Minister for courts and legal services, the Minister of State, Ministry of Justice, my hon. and learned Friend the Member for Finchley and Golders Green (Sarah Sackman) signal toward once-in-a-generation-type reforms, as well as the need to think boldly. I welcome her ambition. For the women and girls who are waiting for their day of justice, I would be grateful if the Minister set out what actions the Government are taking in the short to medium term.

As I bring my speech to an end, I want to give voice to a constituent who wrote to me with her experience. I want her to know that there are people listening. I want her to know that she has shown exceptional bravery by sharing her story in the hope that others will not have to endure what she has. I want her to believe that the Government can put this right. With your permission, Madam Deputy Speaker, I will end with her words, which are deeply moving and a powerful expression of what she and others are going through:

“In one word, dying. I feel like dying. To end the pain of living every day knowing that the trial could be postponed again, like it has so many times now. I am living in limbo, with the weight of the trial weighing on me every day. The intense anxiety in the run-up to the trial date is unbearable. I can’t eat, sleep or enjoy anything. There is absolutely nothing for me to look forward to. It’s like trying to walk through the deepest muddiest river and getting absolutely nowhere, just stuck in the same place. And that is what it is like every time the trial is postponed and I have to wait months for the next trial date. And the cycle starts again. It is killing me every single day.”

I congratulate my hon. Friend the Member for Newcastle upon Tyne East and Wallsend (Mary Glindon) on securing this very important debate. We have heard some incredibly powerful and moving stories. I know that everyone in this House, despite our political differences, is united in one purpose: that more must be done to bring victims the swift justice they deserve. And more must be done to properly support them throughout the justice process.

As we have heard, for too many victims in this country justice delayed does mean justice denied. As my hon. Friend stated, only last week the new statistics laid bare the scale of the backlog in our Crown court, which is now at a record high. There were 73,000 cases awaiting trial or a sentencing hearing as of September this year. That number has doubled since 2019. Sexual offence cases, including rape, were on average taking 356 days from arrival at the Crown court to completion—a significant increase on the average for sexual offence cases pre-covid.

As politicians, we often reel out statistics, but behind each one of those statistics are real people: real victims, including people who have endured rape and sexual abuse, who are not just waiting months for trial, but years. For some, that seemingly endless wait is quite understandably too much to bear. Left without hope of the justice that they deserve and facing a long road to the closure that they need, many drop out of their cases all together, and when they do, their attackers get away without consequences, free to offend again.

The Minister is making a very important point about victim attrition, but one thing that concerns me is the fact that court delays also mean that when cases are heard, the testimony of victims—including victim-survivors in these cases—will be of much poorer quality given the length of time that has passed, and more cases will end with a not guilty verdict for people who should very much be behind bars. Is the Department looking into that, and are there statistics for what the backlog has meant for the conviction rate?

My hon. Friend is right: there are concerns about that, and I hear them, as does the Department. It is true that some of the special measures that were intended to empower victim-survivors giving testimony are potentially having a negative impact. I will say more about that later, but I can say to my hon. Friend that the Department and I are very alive to it.

My aim is to get out there and meet as many victims and survivors as possible to hear directly about their experiences, some of which are unimaginably awful. One victim-survivor of rape told me that her case took years to finally get to trial, and she used words similar to those of my hon. Friend’s constituent—words that I will never forget. She said that the entire experience made her “want to die”. No one should ever feel that way about our justice system. I am proud that this Government were elected with a landmark mission to halve violence against women and girls within a decade, finally making this a priority after years of neglect. It will not be easy, but I believe that we are up to the challenge. However, if we are to have any hope of doing so, we must improve the way in which the justice system responds to these crimes, and that must include ensuring that victims’ cases are heard swiftly by the courts.

As I have said, this Government inherited a criminal courts system that was stretched to breaking point. We have taken the crucial first steps to bear down on that caseload, including funding 106,500 Crown court sitting days in this financial year. We have also extended sentencing powers in magistrates courts to 12 months when they are dealing with offences that can be heard in either a Crown court or a magistrates court, which will free up 2,000 Crown court days and provide more capacity to hear the most serious cases. However, the number of cases entering Crown courts shows no signs of letting up, so if victims are going to see justice more swiftly, we cannot simply do more of the same; we have to go further.

Delivering the Government’s bold plan for change and making our streets safer will take a once-in-a-generation reform of our courts system, which is why the Lord Chancellor announced last week that she had commissioned Sir Brian Leveson to carry out an independent review of the criminal courts, looking specifically at how we might speed up the hearing of cases. Sir Brian’s review will examine how our courts can operate more efficiently, but it will also look at much more fundamental reform—considering, for instance, the introduction of an intermediate court, in which cases that are too serious to be heard by a magistrate alone could be heard by a judge alongside magistrates. We expect Sir Brian to report on his initial findings in spring next year.

This marks a crucial step towards our ambition of bearing down on the overall caseload and bringing down waiting times for all victims, witnesses and defendants. As I have said, however, we know that victims of sexual violence endure particularly long waits for justice, and, as the House will know, we have therefore made a commitment to fast-track rape cases through the system. We are considering the best way of doing so, and we are keen to build on the work that has already been done by the senior judiciary. I saw one of their initiatives at first hand during my visit to Bristol Crown court over the summer, and was struck by how tirelessly those judges and court staff are working to keep cases moving. It was inspiring to see.

This is a tough challenge, and whatever we do, waiting times will not come down overnight. If we are to keep victims engaged while they continue to face lengthy waits, partners across the criminal justice system and victim support services must pull together, as indeed they are. The Ministry of Justice provides ringfenced funding for independent sexual violence advisers and independent domestic violence advisers, as well as for community-based domestic abuse and sexual violence services. That is in addition to the core funding that we provide for police and crime commissioners to allocate at their discretion.

I am pleased to say that we are maintaining the 2024-25 funding levels for sexual violence and domestic support next year. The CPS recently announced its victims transformation programme, which has a focus on improving the justice process for victims of rape and serious sexual offences. Pre-trial meetings with prosecutors are now being offered to all victims of adult rape and serious sexual offences, and there will be greater access to independent sexual violence advisers as well as dedicated victim liaison officers.

As my hon. Friend the Member for Warrington North (Charlotte Nichols) has mentioned, victims’ experience of court is affected by the interactions that they have there and with the staff.

I very much welcome what the Minister is saying; it is really positive stuff. Policing and justice are devolved matters in Northern Ireland, but I know that she takes a big interest in Northern Ireland. Could she share what she has put forward tonight with the relevant authorities in the Northern Ireland Assembly?

As an MP for a constituency in a devolved nation, I am acutely aware of the need to ensure that we have a joined-up approach. Although justice and policing are devolved to Northern Ireland, I will happily discuss this issue with colleagues to see how we can best approach it, because somewhere in our United Kingdom a rape or sexual violence victim-survivor is currently suffering an insufferable wait, and we need to do more to protect all victims across the country.

As I have said, we need to look at victims’ experience of court. As part of the same programme, over 500 CPS staff who will meet victims have received trauma-informed training. We will also continue to deliver trauma-informed training at Snaresbrook, Leeds and Newcastle Crown courts, with over 400 professionals trained so far, including court staff and police. Witness waiting rooms and in-court technology have been upgraded in those courts so that victims can give their best evidence, watch proceedings away from the courtroom, or simply wait in a comfortable and private space. Attending court can be terrifying, and I know that many victims, quite understandably, fear bumping into the perpetrator when they do.

The Minister just made a point about victims being able to watch proceedings from another room, which is often not the case in rape trials, where the victim is considered a witness rather than a participant in the case. I know that the Department is looking at things like transcripts. Will they become more readily available, so that victims who, for whatever reason, do not feel like they can participate while the trial is taking place can read what happened after the trial as part of the process of closure?

My hon. Friend makes another important point. We are currently offering a pilot on transcripts. I will mention that again in my speech, but it is about how much more comfortable we can make the whole terrifying process for victims and survivors when they are in our court system. What more can we do to make their experience as comfortable—if that is the appropriate word—as it can be? As I have said, we know that it can be utterly terrifying.

There are also concerns about the way that victims’ evidence is currently presented to the jury. I hear those concerns loud and clear, particularly where the approach can reduce the chance of securing a conviction. The Department is conducting a thorough impact evaluation and looking at section 28 of the Youth Justice and Criminal Evidence Act 1999—the mechanism by which victims can give their testimony in advance of trial—to see whether it affects the case outcome, court effectiveness and the timeliness of cross-examination. We will publish the findings of our review in the new year.

Victims of rape and sexual offences can request transcripts of Crown court sentencing remarks for free through our one-year pilot, which is running until May next year. I encourage all eligible victims and survivors to find out whether that could be helpful, and to please take up the offer.

Just for clarification, will transcripts be available only for victim-survivors who have secured a successful conviction? Given what we are talking about, it is important that people who were not able to secure a conviction can still access transcripts as part of the important process of closure.

My understanding is that any victim who is eligible is able to apply for transcripts, regardless of whether a conviction has been secured, but I will seek clarification for my hon. Friend on that matter.

This is a landmark mission, and we have further to go to support victims of rape and sexual offences—both at court and across the whole of their journey through the system. I am proud that, as well as fast-tracking rape cases through the courts, we plan to begin rolling out our free, independent legal advisers for victims of adult rape from next year. Those advisers will be a real step forward for victims, and offer legal advice at any point between report and trial. We will also introduce specialist rape and sexual offence teams in every police force. We will make sure that police officers receive stronger training on violence against women and girls, and ban anyone with a history of violence against women and girls from joining the police force.

Wherever they are in their journey through the system, I want to make sure that every victim knows their rights and that agencies are held accountable for delivering those rights. The Victims and Prisoners Act 2024 lays the foundation for ensuring that victims know the rights they should receive under the victims code and that agencies are held accountable for delivering them. The Act also places a duty on local commissioners in England to collaborate in the commissioning of support services for victims of domestic abuse, sexual abuse and serious violence. We will consult on a revised victims code and the duty to collaborate guidance early next year. I am working with my officials to ensure that we have the right data and systems to monitor compliance with the new code. We have also pledged to increase the Victims’ Commissioner’s powers, so that there is more accountability when victims’ needs are not being met.

My hon. Friend the Member for Newcastle upon Tyne East and Wallsend asked me about the impact of adjournments on victims and survivors. I want to reassure her that I am looking at every possible solution and pulling every lever at my disposal across the criminal justice system to ensure that we leave no stone unturned in ensuring that the victims of these abhorrent crimes receive the swift justice that they deserve.

I understand that there is a specific problem with the criminal injuries compensation scheme as it stands, whereby a claim has to be brought within two years of the original allegation, even though in many cases there has not even been a prosecution by that point. Is that something that the Department is looking at?

My hon. Friend will be aware of the consultations run by the previous Government on the criminal injuries compensation scheme. I have been reviewing those consultations and we are looking to publish the Government’s response in the new year, but we are aware of the concerns from the sector, and from victims and survivors, about the scheme. We are looking at how much more we can do to support victims and survivors as a whole on these issues. [Official Report, 19 December 2024; Vol. 759, c. 2WC.] (Correction)

Let me come to a close by again thanking my hon. Friend the Member for Newcastle upon Tyne East and Wallsend for securing this debate, and all the hon. and right hon. Members who have contributed to such a thoughtful discussion. Sexual offences leave devastation in their wake. Victims are often left traumatised and the very least they deserve is swift justice, but too often that justice process serves only to traumatise them further, whether it is because they are not getting the right support or because they are facing an agonising wait for their case to come to court, as we have heard so powerfully this evening. We have inherited a criminal justice system—and a criminal courts system in particular—in crisis, but the rebuilding effort is under way. We have an ambitious package of reform, we are thinking boldly, and while I am realist enough to know that change will not happen overnight, I can assure you all that this Government are up to the challenge.

Question put and agreed to.