Trials: Sexual Offences

(asked on 12th July 2019) - View Source

Question to the Ministry of Justice:

To ask the Secretary of State for Justice, what the average waiting time was for a not guilty plea trial for an alleged sexual offence in each court in (a) 2011 and (b) 2018.


Answered by
Paul Maynard Portrait
Paul Maynard
Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Department for Work and Pensions)
This question was answered on 17th July 2019

The information requested about Crown Court waiting times can be found in the attached excel document. However, due to small numbers of defendants pleading not guilty to sexual offences at magistrates’ court, we are unable to supply the average time between first listing and trial start date – basing an average on such small numbers can skew the mean and result in the figures being unrepresentative.

The overall median waiting time in Crown Courts for defendants in sexual offence cases tends to be higher than that for other offences due to a lower guilty plea rate for these cases. However, from a peak of 25.9 weeks in Quarter three 2018, the average waiting time has fallen by 12% to 22.7 weeks in Quarter one 2019.

Performance, demand and waiting times in the courts are constantly reviewed to balance sitting days with waiting times, disposals and receipts. Resources are adjusted when required. Demand has been falling in recent years and sitting days have been reduced accordingly. Waiting times for trials in the Crown Court for 2018 have been the lowest since 2014, despite the challenge of increasingly complex cases.

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