Victims of crime in Bolton and beyond are being “denied justice” amid huge court backlogs. The latest figures show that across the country there are more than 68,000 cases waiting to be heard at Crown Courts and more than 380,000 backed up at Magistrates Courts. Yasmin Qureshi, MP for Bolton South East and former criminal barrister says she has repeatedly called for the government to take action.
She said: “These new figures show that the government has failed to tackle the court backlogs. “I have raised this repeatedly year after year and every year I have been promised action. Yasmin Qureshi MP has called on the government to address the state of the courts (Image: Henry Lisowski) “The government clearly do not have the plan, or the will, to get the backlog down.
“There are some immediate fixes to the problems, like allowing associate prosecutors to take on more complex cases, something as a qualified prosecuting barristers I know will help alleviate some of the pressure. “I will continue to campaign and speak up for residents across Bolton and Walkden who are being denied justice.” The figures released by the Ministry of Justice show that as of April this year there were 68,125 outstanding cases in the Crown Courts and 387,042 in the Magistrates’ Courts.
This was a sharp rise on the year before, when there were 60,760 Crown Court cases waiting to be heard, with 338,866 magistrates’ court cases. In a historic first in the autumn off 2022, criminal barris.