New Metropolitan Police Commissioner Sir Mark Rowley
(Picture: PA Wire)Criminals have been exploiting the growing backlog in court cases by pleading not guilty instead of admitting their offences in an attempt to avoid conviction, the Met Commissioner has warned.
Sir Mark Rowley said the result was that 80 per cent of suspects had started pleading not guilty with only 20 per cent admitting their crimes. He said that was a reversal of the previous balance between guilty and not guilty pleas.
He told officers that the trend — which he said was particularly harmful to victims of sexual offending among others — had been fuelled by the recent strike by criminal barristers.
It added to the already large number of outstanding cases by forcing trials to be delayed and has pushed the backlog up to around 60,000 outstanding cases.
Campaigners have warned previously about the danger of victims giving up on pursuing justice because of the hold-ups and Sir Mark echoed these concerns as he disclosed the new not guilty trend during a meeting with officers in Holborn.
“The barristers’ strike has been a real challenge for us all,” the Met Commissioner said. “More and more cases are backing up in the system and that’s a real concern to me.
“I’ve heard that because cases are backing up in the system, struggling, defence lawyers are persuading more of their clients to plead not guilty, which is adding to backlogs.
“Someone told me that we were normally having, across all crime, about 80 per cent pleading guilty, 20 per cent not guilty, and at the moment it’s the other way round. Particularly for victims of sexual offences that is a problem.”
The large backlog of trials waiting to take place has built up over many years with lawyers and others blaming Government funding cuts including a previous decision to limit the number of court sitting days.
The problem worsened during the Covid pandemic and has recently been added to by the strike by members of the Criminal Bar Association, who voted to stop taking new cases in protest at years of declining fees and a resulting exodus of barristers from the profession.
The dispute ended last week when the new Justice Secretary Brandon Lewis improved the Government’s offer of a 15 per cent fee increase for new cases to include those in the backlog.
Kirsty Brimelow KC, chairman of the Criminal Bar Association, warned however, that the justice system remains “chronically underfunded” and further action would be needed to ensure the courts work more effectively.
