Abuse victims speak of added 'trauma' after being forced to wait years for justice - as Britain’s courts system 'neglected'

Despite government pledges to tackle the crisis, the backlog continues to grow - more than 127,000 court sitting days would currently be needed to clear the 80,000 outstanding cases.

And victims told us the consequences are devastating, with many left waiting years for trials to conclude.

Alice, whose name has been changed, reported a sexual assault at 18 but waited three years for her case to reach court.

“I reported in my first semester of university - and I’d managed to complete all my assignments by the time the trial actually happened,” she said.

“Essentially, I could complete a full degree before getting to court.

“The wait was really traumatic - I went from having nightmares about the incident to having nightmares about court.”

LBC spent five days at Teesside Crown Court, in the police force area with the highest recorded crime rate in the UK.

But across the 43 hearings our reporter observed, 90 per cent started late, with delays averaging 31 minutes.

The government has hold us they “inherited a court system in crisis” and is “pulling every lever at our disposal to drive down the backlog, avoid devastating delays, and deliver swifter justice.”

But even when proceedings began, Alice said progress was painfully slow.

“We were told to get there every morning for 9, but nothing really starts in court until 11am, and then at 2pm everyone would go home. Everything was cut so short.”

She said the case “didn’t need to be a week-long ordeal” and could have been completed in days.

The delays LBC witnessed included barristers failing to attend; prisons not knowing defendants were due in court; and in one case, proceedings were halted because a defendant’s glasses had been left in jail.

'Sleepless nights'

Vicki Crawford was indecently assaulted as a teenager and reported the offence in her 50s.

But she told us the process became unbearable once it entered the court system - leaving her suffering panic attacks and post-traumatic stress disorder.

“Each court hearing was delayed - there were six delays to the trial itself,” she said.

“I’d get told on the morning of trial that it wasn’t going ahead again. I had no control over the situation. It led to sleepless nights and panic attacks.”

Vicki told us one hearing was reportedly delayed after a prison lift broke down, preventing the defendant from making his way to the video room and appearing in court remotely.

Campaigners have warned the prolonged waits are driving victims out of the justice process altogether.

“Domestic abuse is all about control and coercion and often there is huge pressure not to support the case, not to cooperate with the police and the Crown Prosecution Service, not to give evidence,” Ellie Butt, from the charity Refuge, told LBC.

“When you add years of delays, stress and the impact on mental health, it’s really understandable why attrition rates are so high.

“It’s an extremely challenging thing to support in the best of circumstances, and these are certainly not the best of circumstances.”

'Unacceptable'

The victim's commissioner, Claire Waxman, told us the delays are “unacceptable”, waring that many victims are losing faith in the justice system.

“For victims, waiting months or years for a case to reach court prolongs trauma and keeps their lives on hold,” she said.

“Too many victims tell me that the process has become an endurance test. Some disengage entirely, saying that if they had known how long it would take, they would never have reported the crime.”

For lawyers and legal experts, the problems stem from years of underinvestment in the justice system.

Mark Evans, president of the Law Society, thinks after decades of neglect by successive governments have left courts crumbling.

“It’s going to take decades of investment to get them back to functional.

“It paints an awful image for the victim - thinking their livers are being dealt with in a public forum, in a building that’s not really fit for purpose.”

A Ministry of Justice spokesperson told their plan to tackle court delays “includes pragmatic structural reform, record financial investment and modernisation on top of £550m to support victims through the justice process and a dedicated national legal advisors service for rape victims.”