Court chaos scuppers 60,000 trials

More than £80 million a year is wasted by unnecessary delays and adjournments in the courts, a withering assessment of the criminal justice system concludes today.

A powerful spending watchdog blames police, courts, prosecutors, the probation service, prisons and private security escort firms for contributing to a culture of blame and inefficiency that means one in three crown court trials does not start on its scheduled day.

The Audit Commission warns today that despite positive steps by the Government, "cases are dropping out of the system unnecessarily, allowing offenders to evade justice".

The report says the Crown Prosecution Service, police and other agencies "too often blame each other for the fact that they do not achieve their own targets, and work around problems rather than co-operating to overcome them".

Entitled The Route to Injustice, the report adds that more than 60,000 cases a year - 13 per cent of the total - are discontinued when they get to court. Typical problems include a victim or witness refusing to testify, prosecutors failing to get their case ready in time, or witnesses failing to turn up.

The study comes after the Damilola Taylor case ended in some defendants being freed on judge's orders and the remaining defendants being found not guilty. The case has raised serious questions about how police and the prosecution work together in the handling of witnesses.

The Government is poised to unveil major reforms of the criminal justice system in a White Paper next month. But today the Audit Commission warns: "Radical change to the CJS [criminal justice system] is necessary if real improvements are to be made."

It is critical of weak management and warns problems with delays can begin when police make inappropriate charges and the CPS wastes time correcting the decision. Other complications set in because of flaws in information on offenders held on the Police National Computer, and CPS failures to be ready in time for a case to proceed.

Hold-ups in prisoners being brought to court can also contribute to delays, leaving 69 per cent of witnesses waiting more than an hour to give evidence. One in four witnesses at crown court have to wait more than four hours.

In "cracked" trials - those which do not go ahead on the day for which they are listed - most do not because the defendant changes their plea at the last moment to guilty. Courtrooms cost £880 a day to run, so the tactic is costly and, police say, clear evidence of defence lawyers playing the system in the hope prosecution witnesses will fail to appear.

The report notes that just 429,000 cases a year go to court even though police record 5.2 million offences. And in spite of the £13 billion a year spent annually on the justice system, more than half of all offenders are back in court on fresh charges within two years of being convicted.

The Audit Commission says much more effort needs to go into putting criminals through supervision and rehabilitation programmes to prevent reoffending.

Earlier this year, Metropolitan Police Commissioner Sir John Stevens warned inefficiency and delay was causing many witnesses to lose faith in the system.

In one Scotland Yard survey, over a 14-day period 140 people were called as witnesses but only 19 eventually gave evidence.

And a detailed analysis of London courts by Her Majesty's CPS Inspectorate said lacklustre prosecutors, absent police officers and reluctant witnesses were all contributing to the collapse of thousands of serious criminal cases every year.

Error upon error at clumsy CPS