Court delays ‘allowing drug gangs to roam free’
COURT delays are allowing drug gangs to roam free, it was claimed yesterday.
Almost a quarter of trials involving the production or sale of Class A drugs were postponed at the last minute, official figures for the year to September show.
The number of cases — involving drugs such as heroin, cocaine, LSD and ecstasy — pulled from court listings has more than doubled in the past five years.
And the number of trials waiting more than a year to come to court is seven times higher than five years ago, up from 239 in 2017 to 1,761 last year.
In all, 1,013 ditched trials were recorded in the year to September 2017 and 2,328 in the 12 months to last September.
A typical case against a suspect took more than 16 months from offence to completion in 2021, an increase of more than four-fifths on 2017.
The stats show 24.6 per cent of cases were halted on the day of trial in the year to September last year, compared with fewer than 17 per cent over the same period in 2017.
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Labour says the backlog is allowing drugs gangs to evade justice. Shadow Attorney General Emily Thornberry said: “Every trial delayed means victims and witnesses face further intimidation and harassment, and risks cases collapsing.”
The Ministry of Justice said: “Covid has meant many trials were postponed at the last minute as people fell ill or were forced to isolate.”
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