Top judge attacks Blunkett

Britain's most senior judge has warned that a stream of Government anti-crime initiatives will not restore battered public confidence in the justice system.

In a thinly veiled personal attack on Home Secretary David Blunkett, Lord Woolf said ministers should concentrate on solving simple problems like getting prisoners to court on time instead of rafts of new proposals to curb crime.

He said: "You can have initiative after initiative to improve the criminal justice system but if you don't touch the basic problem you will never achieve public confidence."

In a coded swipe at politicians and police chiefs who have attacked the judiciary and defence lawyers over their conduct in eye-catching failed prosecutions such as the Damilola Taylor case, Lord Woolf said that without confidence in either the legal profession or the legal system, "justice will no be provided in this country in the way it should".

The speech to a legal audience will today enrage Mr Blunkett, who was furious last year at the senior judge's apparent willingness to interfere with government policy.

Lord Woolf incurred the wrath of Mr Blunkett with his own policy statements on the management of paedophiles and criticism of the Government's plans for the detention without trial of foreign terrorist suspects.

The latest remarks, courteously delivered, will nevertheless reignite the feud at a time when Mr Blunkett is under pressure on crime and going to extraordinary lengths to patch up his relationship with the police.

Mr Blunkett has a problem of presentation too, wishing on the one hand to be seen as tough on crime, while attempting to clear the jails of minor offenders.

Lord Woolf and Mr Blunkett are as one in believing that jails should be reserved for serious and violent criminals.

But there is now clear evidence that the courts have responded to tough political rhetoric by using custody much more often in relatively minor cases, with the result being that jails are now full to bursting with more than 70,000 inmates.

Government sources privately acknowledge they are now in a difficult position, anxious to be seen to be acting vigorously against rising street crime, but conscious that every headline about a new initiative only serves to ratchet up public fear of crime.

Prime Minister Tony Blair's street crime action group, launched in March, may help sharpen up performance throughout the criminal justice system, but the almost daily announcement of changes in approach by prosecutors, police, the courts and other agencies have fuelled an atmosphere of panic and a sense of crisis.

In a dig at the Treasury, Lord Woolf also made clear that wide-ranging government plans to overhaul the courts and sentencing, due to be published in the next two months, will fail because of a lack of money.

Mr Blair has personally identified the need to drag the justice system from the 19th century into the 21st, but there are already problems in the courts.

Reforms of the civil courts which began two years ago are already faltering because new computer systems have not been delivered.

"I am very concerned that what has been achieved in regard to civil justice and what has yet to be achieved in criminal justice is going to founder on the rack of lack of resources unless it is recognised they are essential," Lord Woolf said.