Drink spiking growing concern says Sheffield Victim Support manager as human cost of court delays is laid bare

The wait for cases to be heard is getting longer and longer

If you are unlucky enough to have been a victim of crime here in Sheffield or across South Yorkshire – and the Crown Prosecution Service decide to proceed with the case against the person or people alleged to be responsible – the chances are it will end up in front of a judge or magistrate at Sheffield Crown Court or Sheffield Magistrates’ Court.

The most serious cases are sent to Sheffield Crown Court, an imposing, landmark building at the heart of West Bar, where most facets of the human experience are played out, scrutinised, dissected; and used to either contextualise and mitigate against a defendant’s alleged offending or to frame and further the case against them.

While adjustments of varying degrees are made to accommodate victims of crime, the prospect of having to relive the very traumatic event that brought you to the court – whether that is by giving evidence in front of a trial jury before being cross-examined by a consummate legal professional or to face the person who offended against you being brought to justice at sentence – must be an extremely daunting one.

And as courts across the country, including Sheffield Crown Court, work to deal with a record backlog of criminal cases caused by a perfect storm of Covid delays and barristers striking indefinitely over payments for defendants who cannot afford defence lawyers, the wait for cases to be heard is getting longer and longer.

Victim Support is an independent charity in England and Wales that provides specialist practical and emotional support to victims and witnesses of crime.

Victims of crime are dropping out of the court process altogether

Debbie Harding, Area Manager for Victim Support in South Yorkshire, says the emotional – and financial – toll of cases taking a long time to get to court, or having long-awaited dates adjourned, is not only ‘retraumatising’ several victims of crime but it is also causing some to ‘lose faith’ in the criminal justice system and drop out of the process altogether.

She said: “What we see a lot is when people are having a long wait for their trial date to come up, you can see the level of stress and anxiety increasing because obviously as you can imagine a lot of crimes carry traumatic elements, and so the longer someone is having to wait to have their case heard and the outcome of that known the more they’re unable to move on with their lives and rebuild after that experience.

“And obviously the experience of giving evidence can be quite traumatic and intimidating. People might have to relive quite painful memories, experiences of what happened with that crime. And so the longer that the court date takes to come about the more daunting that can feel. Having something like that hanging over you and living in fear and getting kind of nervous about it, and often for years at a time can really have a big impact.”

“The other thing with all of this is that even if a court date gets set, people know that they might get adjourned so there’s never a definite end date in sight until the very end. All of that can really intimidate and traumatise people again, even after the trauma of the actual incident that they were faced with originally. And then there’s the worry of coming into contact with the defendant, and the defendant’s supporters so all of that adds up to a really distressing picture,” added Debbie.

While the charity does not hold data on areas such as the number of victims of, and witnesses to, crime having to endure a wait of several years to see the case being dealt with, Debbie said the Victim Support service is aware of victims in the area waiting ‘up to five years, sometimes with four or five adjournments during this time’.

The emotional and financial impact of court delays

Debbie continued: “If you imagine any of us needing to go to court and dates getting changed, we might have to put arrangements in place like childcare or book time off work, book travel, those kind of things. And again, if things get delayed repeatedly it has an actual financial impact on people as well. That all adds up again to someone maybe thinking I can’t do this, I can’t afford to take more time off work and I’m just going to have to walk away.

“There’s also the problem with the quality of evidence because the longer that time goes on might mean that the quality of evidence diminishes and again that might mean the likelihood of a successful conviction might fall, the case might collapse. And so, not only is it the emotions of the here-and-now in the process that is impacted, the outcome of the actual case can be massively impacted as well. That can all mean people are left feeling let down, feeling frustrated, dissatisfied.

“They’ve gone through all of that and then actually the case has suffered for it as well.”

Debbie says she believes the government needs to take ‘urgent action now’ to resolve the issues in the criminal justice system that are impacting upon victims, as part of what she describes as a ‘decade-long problem that we see and have for a long time’.

“Investment is needed quite urgently. Things are only going to get worse, with additional delays and pressures on the system and things like the strikes, the complexities of cases. All of that adds up to it being quite a depressing picture for victims really and for the seeking of justice. What the criminal justice system should always be pushing for is fair justice, and it just feels like it’s becoming less fair the more that these delays impact people,” she said.

‘We are restoring the swift access to justice victims deserve’

A Ministry of Justice spokesperson said the government is investing in a ‘raft of measures to speed up justice for victims’ including extending unlimited sitting days for the new financial year, ensuring Crown Courts can operate at maximum capacity; rolling out video technology to over 70 per cent of all courtrooms and opening over 3,000 virtual court rooms across all jurisdictions and doubling the sentencing powers available to magistrates from six months to a year to free up an estimated 1,700 extra sitting days of Crown Court time each year.

The spokesperson added: “We are restoring the swift access to justice victims deserve by spending almost half a billion pounds to reduce wait times, as well as boosting funding for victim support by at least £460 million over the next three years.

“Our actions had brought the pandemic-induced backlog down by around 2,000 cases and while we are increasing criminal barristers’ fees by 15 per cent their ongoing strike action only delays justice for victims further.”

‘Growing problem’ of spiking cases in South Yorkshire is ‘building area of concern’

Another ‘building area of concern’ for the South Yorkshire Victim Support team is the ‘growing problem’ in the number of spiking cases they are seeing.

Debbie added: “It does seem like quite a building area of concern really in South Yorkshire. And I know there are certain things being brought in by bars where people don’t feel safe in a bar or who have a concern, there are almost like codewords they can use with bar staff if they feel like they’re being intimidated or they’re concerned about someone looking a bit suspicious around them. So there are initiatives going on to try and combat this if it starts to be a problem, but there’s still going to be that impact there.”

Debbie said that one of Victim Support’s aims is to do ‘everything we can to prevent people feeling like their only option is to give up, drop out, not be able to face it’.

She added: “We have a lady who specialises in domestic abuse and stalking in Yorkshire and she had a nice bit of feedback from a lady she had been supporting for 10 months.

“She commented saying I don’t know what we would have done if that support wasn’t there...she mentioned it was a long journey for her but because of this staff member she was able to come out the other side of it.”

“If you imagine Victim Support and similar services not existing, not being funded locally, would that have been another case where somebody was not quite able to face pursuing and continuing and she commented on how this member of staff gave her hope for the future and supported her and her children.”

Support is available for victims of crime, whether they have reported the matter to the police or not. Call Victim Support’s free 24/7 Supportline – 08 08 16 89 111 or start a live chat. In an emergency always call 999.