Crown court backlog hits “alarming” new high

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The backlog at crown courts in England and Wales has hit a new high of 64,015 unresolved cases, according to data published last week by HM Courts and Tribunals Services.

This figure represents the number of crown court cases open in July, which is a 402 increase on June’s figure and nearly 5,000 cases higher than the same time last year. The huge spike during the coronavirus pandemic, which saw the number of open cases jump from 37,000 to 55,000 in a single year (2020), only made matters worse. Plus, between 2020 and 2023, the number of rape cases that made up the backlog quadrupled.

Talking of the “terrible backlogs”, Lubna Shuja, president of the Law Society of England and Wales, said that they “continue to spiral out of control” and described the consistent increase in cases as “alarming”. Shuja also called the government’s target to reduce the backlog to 53,000 by March 2025 “wishful thinking” and said that “efforts to tackle crime and keep communities safe will fail if these backlogs aren’t addressed”.

On top of the crown court rises, magistrates’ courts saw an increase of more than 6,000 cases in July, taking the total to above 350,000.

Shuja has called for “[u]rgent investment” across the entire criminal justice system to prevent its failure and warned that “continued inaction will only result in its collapse”.