Victims of crime in England and Wales are being let down by a government that has failed to provide adequate resources to the criminal justice system, women’s groups have said, after it emerged that sentencing hearings of convicted criminals currently on bail – including rapists and burglars – were to be delayed because prisons are full.
It has been reported that the senior presiding judge for England and Wales, Lord Justice Edis, issued the guidance on a private call with senior crown court judges. A government source told the Guardian it applied to those who had been on bail throughout the court process and had, therefore, already been assessed as lower risk.
But groups representing women – including rape and sexual assault survivors – said many of them would be “feeling the weight of this news” on Thursday.
“It is abundantly clear that our criminal justice system is catastrophically broken,” said Deniz Uğur, the deputy director of the End Violence Against Women Coalition. “This is yet further evidence of how the system isn’t serving survivors of rape.”
She added: “The government claims it has met the aims of the rape review ahead of target, but the reality facing rape survivors tells a completely different story.
“Expert women’s organisations have set out what needs to be done to address the many ways survivors are being failed from report to court and even harmed by the criminal justice system including through victim-blaming, excessive requests for their private therapy notes, poor charging rates and court delays that can last many years.
“If the government is truly serious about prioritising victims, it is high time we see the root and branch transformation so urgently needed.”
A spokesperson for the Centre for Women’s Justice said: “It is extremely worrying to hear that sentencing decisions for serious sexual offenders may be affected by a lack of resource in the prison estate. Rape victims are already being badly let down by a justice system plagued by under-resourcing: lack of police resource to investigate their cases, backlogs in the courts meaning lengthy trial delays – this is another concern to add to that list.”
The prison population was 88,016 last week, an increase of more than 6,500 in a year, almost 10,000 up on two years ago and close to the capacity of 88,667.
In a court of appeal case earlier this year, Edis said judges and magistrates should consider imposing suspended sentences for offences that attracted shorter terms, given “current prison population levels”. The more recent reports suggested sentencing could be delayed to help alleviate the problem.
According to the Times, a senior crown court judge took the guidance as a message to judges that, from Monday, they were “ordered/strongly encouraged” not to jail offenders.
A government source suggested offenders were likely to be left on bail between conviction and sentence, as that was thought safe, and be jailed only at a delayed sentencing hearing – if a custodial sentence were deemed appropriate. The source stressed it was not a government policy, as sentencing is the preserve of the independent judiciary.
Speaking to media on behalf of the government on Thursday, the health secretary, Steve Barclay, said his cabinet colleague, the justice secretary, Alex Chalk, would address the issue in a statement to the Commons on Monday.
