'An affront to justice' - Shrewsbury Crown Court judge's concern at long delays in the system
A judge showed his frustration at a clogged court system when trying to deal with a case that is already six years old.
When trying to fix dates for trials Shrewsbury Crown Court operates a warned list and a fixture list – the fixtures get priority because they are the more serious matters.
Warned lists tell defendants and their barristers to prepare to go to trial at some point in a two week period but they can be bumped off to make way for more serious cases.
Judge Anthony Lowe had one such problem on Friday when he called the situation an “affront to justice” that people are waiting for so long to get their cases dealt with.
The barristers were aiming to get a trial involving two defendants sorted out and were looking at dates well into next summer.
Judge Lowe wanted to see whether the case, involving some drugs offences, could be turned into a fixture.
But he was told that the court booking system could not accommodate that until much further in the future.
So in the end the judge settled for putting the case in the two week warned list in August next year,
“We must try to accommodate it in that two week period,” said Judge Lowe.