Justice HQ now a court as cases mount

THE vast Ministry of Justice headquarters is set to be turned into a working court to ease the burden on the creaking legal system.

Social-distancing measures have dramatically reduced capacity for trials and hearings – which was tight even before the pandemic started – with London the worst affected area.

Now Ministers are set to approve plans to use their own building in Westminster to ease pressure on the capital’s civil and family courts.

And across the country, various town halls, some of which still have historic court facilities including holding cells, are to be converted back into temporary criminal facilities.

The Mail on Sunday has learned that the tenth floor of the MoJ’s cavernous building in Petty France, which is currently occupied by 75 press officers, is being lined up for the new facilities. Last week, Government communications bosses outlined a plan to dramatically scale back the size of departmental press offices, and instead centralise Whitehall PR in the Cabinet Office.

Ironically, a vast courtroom at 9 Downing Street is set to be turned into a broadcasting facility under the same reforms.

Until 2009, the ornate wood-panelled room housed the Judicial Committee of the Privy Council, which is the highest court of appeal for some UK overseas territories. The room is to host televised briefings to the media from the autumn.

A Whitehall source said: ‘Space is at a premium across London and the MoJ is going to be leading from the front in clearing the massive backlog of cases.’

Last month, the Crown Prosecution Service warned: ‘The backlog of cases in the system is increasing daily. Cases that do come to court are taking hours or days longer than they would under normal circumstances.

‘The challenges of social distancing and protecting those in the court environment cannot be underestimated.’

The CPS added ‘ the current scale of increase in the backlog would take ten years to clear at pre-pandemic rates’.

An HM Courts and Tribunals Service spokesman said: ‘We’ve kept the justice system running throughout the pandemic and have identified an initial ten buildings we could use as courts while social distancing rules are in place.’