Police watchdog: Justice system now on its knees
THE justice system in England and Wales is now so broken, it benefits only big business, the very wealthy, or the “very, very poor”, the police watchdog warned yesterday.
Chief Inspector of Constabulary Sir Thomas Winsor laid into the collapsed probation service, “appalling” inefficiencies and prosecution failures, “disgraceful” late charge changes and trial delays.
He blamed funding cuts and politicians for paying little attention to criminal justice because it is not a vote winner.
Sir Thomas also urged forces to update technology and said officers were still using pencil and paper.
He told the Police Superintendents’ Association: “Access to justice for everyone – for the accused, for the victim, for witnesses, for everyone – is essential.
“Yet in too many respects, it is the preserve only of the large corporations, the very wealthy or the very, very poor.
“Why has the criminal justice system got to this state? Funding cuts are the basic answer.
“And the fact that unlike health, education, there are very few votes in criminal justice.”
Sir Thomas accused politicians of paying little attention to criminal justice until their lives, or those of people close to them were affected.
“Then failures, inefficiencies, and injustices in the system appear to them in stark and shocking terms, but by then, it is too late,” he said.
“In too many cases, justice never arrives at all.”
Ministry of Justice figures show the number of criminals hauled before courts plunged to an all-time low in the year to March.
England and Wales’s criminal justice system dealt with 1.59 million people last year, as recorded crimes rose eight per cent to 5.3 million.
Last year, prison assaults soared to 34,425, 11 per cent higher than in 2017, and there were 10,311 attacks on staff – the most since records began.
There were 57,968 self-harm incidents
in the year to March. Sir Thomas said: “I said in my state of policing report that the criminal justice system today is defective and dysfunctional. Hands up who thinks it isn’t?”
He cited drug and violenceplagued jails with “appalling living conditions and a lack of access to rehabilitative activities” and the “collapse of probation”.
Sir Thomas also hit out at “appalling inefficiencies and failures in prosecutions”, “inexcusable” delays bringing cases to court and “disgraceful late changes to charges”.
He said: “Dame Vera [Northumbria police and crime commissioner Dame Vera Baird] said yesterday that over half of people who had been a witness in court would not do so again.
“That is a disgraceful indictment of our criminal justice system.
“It doesn’t stop there. The decaying courts. The physical, fabric of the building is deteriorating before our eyes.” He said 500 courts were closed and others were standing idle while trials are being delayed, adding: “The accused and the victims are waiting for a year, for two years, just to get the trial done.”
Sir Thomas also said there was almost no artificial intelligence in some police forces.