Question to the Ministry of Justice:

To ask the Secretary of State for Justice, what estimate he has made of the number of rape trials in England and Wales that have been postponed in each year since 2010.

We have interpreted your request as being for ineffective trials, which is where the trial does not commence on the due date and requires rescheduling. This could be due to a variety of reasons, such as the absence of a defendant or a witness or adjournment requests from either the prosecution or defence.

Ineffective trial volumes for rape offences and murder offences at the Crown Court from 2014 to 2022 can be found in the attached table. Information on ineffective trials broken down by offence are not available prior to 2014.

The number of ineffective trial volumes for rape and murder offences significantly increased in 2022; this was primarily due to the Criminal Bar Association action between April and September 2022.