Failures to disclose evidence in rape prosecutions are a sign of the “dystopian disaster” engulfing the criminal justice system that has been caused by chronic government underfunding, the head of the criminal bar has warned.
Angela Rafferty QC, who represents criminal barristers in England and Wales, criticised ministers for trying to promote the justice system as “a national asset” at the time of Brexit when in reality “the fabric of the court estate [is] crumbling”.
Her criticism is the latest complaint about courts. On Friday the Commons justice select committee launched an inquiry into disclosure problems and the role of the Crown Prosecution Service.
At the time Bob Neill, the Conservative MP who chairs the committee, said it raised concerns about “inappropriate charges, unnecessary delays in court proceedings and potential miscarriages of justice”.
The Law Society, which represents solicitors across England and Wales, has launched legal action against the Ministry of Justice for cutting fees for defence lawyers, who have to examine increasingly large volumes of material recovered from mobile phones and laptops.
Richard Miller, head of the justice team at the Law Society, told the Guardian: “The defence system is not being given the resources necessary to go through all this material. The government don’t want to pay the police to go through it and now they don’t want to pay the defence to go through it [either].”
The chair of the Bar Council, Andrew Walker QC, has also warned about the impact of the cuts, saying: “No one else has been asked to swallow anything like this. Yet it was taken for granted that the bar could keep going in the face of it all, leading to the criminal bar being pushed to the very limit.”
Richard Burgon, Labour’s justice spokesman, has pointed out that “the MoJ is facing the deepest budget cuts of any government department”.
Concern over disclosure failures have become increasingly widespread following the collapse of four rape trials since shortly before Christmas, including that of the student Liam Allan, who was cleared last month of multiple counts of rape.
The Director of Public Prosecutions and the police have announced an emergency re-examination of all current rape cases.
Rafferty said the disclosure problems in rape cases were symptomatic of wider difficulties in the criminal justice system caused by underfunding.
In an online message to members of the Criminal Bar Association, she wrote: “We see prisons in chaos, the probation and Parole Board under fire and the fabric of the court estate crumbling. Criminal justice is on its way to a dystopian disaster and yet the government is trying to sell it as a national asset in the time of Brexit ... It is not just disclosure that is failing – the entire system is in crisis.”
She added: “The failings in disclosure apply to all criminal cases, not just rape allegations.” CPS funding has “nosedived”, she said, “as have the levels of staff. It is the same with the police.”
In all the promise of CPS reviews “the role played by cut finances is completely understated”. She added: “Justice is a vital pillar of any civilised democracy. If you cut a system to the bare bones failure, not efficiency, is inevitable. This is a warning. Let’s hope it is heeded.”
At the weekend, the attorney general, Jeremy Wright, denied that lack of police and CPS resources was behind the failings. “In relation to the Crown Prosecution Service, the number of specialist prosecutors who deal with rape and sexual offences have increased by 40% since 2015,” Wright told BBC Radio 4’s Today programme.
In a separate development the MoJ said that it was considering appealing against an Employment Appeal Tribunal judgment published on Monday which found that cuts to judges’ pensions were “discriminatory”. An MoJ spokesperson said: “We recognise and value the important role of the judiciary.”
