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In 2014-15 the Crown Prosecution Service spent £21.5m on preparing cases that were not heard in court. Of this, £5.5m related to cases that collapsed due to ‘prosecution reasons’, including non-attendance of prosecution witnesses and incomplete case files. The National Audit Office’s Efficiency in the criminal justice system report, published in March, also revealed that backlogs in the Crown Court increased by 34% between March 2013 and September 2015, and waiting time for a Crown Court hearing increased from 99 days to 134 over the same period.
In 2014-15 the Crown Prosecution Service spent £21.5m on preparing cases that were not heard in court. Of this, £5.5m related to cases that collapsed due to ‘prosecution reasons’, including non-attendance of prosecution witnesses and incomplete case files. The National Audit Office’s Efficiency in the criminal justice system report, published in March, also revealed that backlogs in the Crown Court increased by 34% between March 2013 and September 2015, and waiting time for a Crown Court hearing increased from 99 days to 134 over the same period.
The Bar Council is ready to support a turn to the efficiencies that will make a difference
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