Nearly 60,000 arrest warrants were issued for defendants who failed to appear in courts across England and Wales last year, marking a rise of nearly 50% since 2020, according to an investigation by Channel 4’s Dispatches, as cited by The Guardian.
The programme, set to air on Friday 29 May, also found that more than 30,000 failure-to-appear warrants remain outstanding, suggesting that tens of thousands of accused individuals may be on the run after being charged. However, it remains unclear how many individuals are subject to multiple warrants.
