Inside the UK’s ‘wild west’ court system where people may have to wait until 2028 for justice to take place
Are you free on 9 March 2026?
You might be a traumatised victim of crime, you may be the suspect accused of wrongdoing, either way you’ll be waiting for the next 460 days… and probably beyond.
That’s exactly what we have just seen inside Leicester Crown Court. Not just once, but case after case shunted into 2026.
The judge in court four isn’t doing it by choice but necessity.
“It is sad because it happened a very long time ago,” he says of the next case, as he consigns everyone involved in an already long-running saga to a further two-year wait.
The judge then turns to us, two Sky News journalists sat making notes on his rather mundane case.
“Can I ask why you are here?” he asks directly.
We’d been told the delays in crown courts across the country are becoming intolerable and the system is breaking down – causing enormous stress, anger and dismay to all concerned.
Leicester Crown Court
The judge then takes the unusual step of addressing the crisis to us in open court.
“I have cases day in, day out that I am having put over. It can be years, if you lose a date in 2025 it is 2026.
“All these cases you have to decide who gets priority… fraud cases are being put on the back burner. In my position I have cases put over for months, even years.”
As a rule, judges don’t do interviews, so this is as close as we’ll get to hearing what he thinks.
He is clearly exasperated and remarkably candid: “I don’t know where things are going to go but they aren’t going to get any better,” he says.
It is a small audience – two court administrators, two barristers, a defendant and two Sky News journalists – but the judge has had enough of this incredibly slow justice.
He is asking victims, defendants, families on both sides, witnesses, the police, court staff, barristers and solicitors to just keep waiting. Every week the backlog gets bigger.
‘Broken’ system
Leading barrister Mary Prior KC is sad at the crumbling system she navigates every day.
“People are still having trials. People are still having their cases heard. It’s the speed that that’s happening…
“I don’t like saying it’s broken,” she says. “But it is broken because it’s not effective. It’s not functioning in the way it used to function.”
She is the chair of the Criminal Bar Association which represents 3,600 barristers – many of them now exasperated by the gridlock.
“There’s this old saying, isn’t there? Justice delayed is justice denied.
“It’s incredibly difficult to have to look people in the eye and say ‘I’m sorry your trial is going to be adjourned until 2025, 26, 27 and now 2028’,” Ms Prior KC adds.
Chair of the Criminal Bar Association Mary Prior KC
Between cases, a defence barrister in court four leant backwards to us in the public gallery after the judge’s monologue and said: “Well, what do you expect if you close so many courtrooms?”
Every day around 15% to 20% of court rooms remain idle in England and Wales – cases can’t proceed if there are not enough judges or barristers to run them – but that’s one part of a multi-faceted problem.
The police are charging more people who then need to go to court and on the other side the prisons are backing up and releasing inmates early.
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Some barristers have had enough and are moving away from criminal law to work in less chaotic areas of the legal profession.
As we walk to the next court we pass a trolley used to shift paperwork around which has been shoved under some stairs. There’s a handwritten sign taped to it reading “DO NOT USE – BROKEN TROLLEY.” It feels symbolic.
Another KC explains to us in the corridor that the nationwide computer system they use for tracking cases and finding the details they need has gone down again. For a few hours, it’s making it impossible for him and his colleagues to effectively represent people.
To cap it off, the prison van for his murder case is two hours late. Again. The two teenagers he is prosecuting for murder arrived just before lunchtime – it happens most days.
The KC is waiting, the judge is waiting, the twelve members of the jury are waiting, the accused teenagers are waiting – the victim’s family is waiting. It’s them who must be suffering the most.
‘The whole system is f***ed!’
We were invited into the barrister’s robing room – which you might think would be quite a grand serene space – it isn’t.
There’s an electrician trying to fix another fault in a box on the wall.
The shared wood topped desk is full of barristers looking harassed with laptops open, their wigs sat next to them – most don’t have the preparation time they need for their next case.
It’s mid-afternoon when a stressed court clerk rushes in.
“I need someone to defend and someone to prosecute right away,” she says apologetically.
The case should have already started but it can’t without barristers to represent both sides. The chaos means there’s no point working out why nobody has turned up, it just happens.
Annabelle Lenton, a young barrister, rolls her eyes, sighs and volunteers.
“I’ve got no idea what is going on today,” she tells us exasperated at having to pick up another case with no time to look at it beforehand.
After the chaos she tells us why it matters to her they keep going.
“If you think about it, if we don’t have a functioning criminal justice system, we are in a position where you have people roaming the streets who are committing serious offences and there’s no retribution for that.
“People aren’t getting justice quick enough and if they’re not… what’s the point in any of it? People will start to give up.”
It’s also one of the reasons why significant numbers of young barristers are moving away from criminal work to other less stressful areas of law.
“It’s f***ing s**t. The whole system is f***ed!”
‘Like the wild west’
Understandably the straight-talking prosecutor we meet next doesn’t want us to use his name but he invites us into one of the tiny and tatty consultation rooms.
“People are now getting away with crimes because of the delays – cases that never actually go ahead because people pull out or there’s nobody to take them. I’d say that’s happening most weeks now.”
He prosecutes big cases in crown courts in the Midlands and the southeast of England.
“It’s bad here in Leicester, Snaresbrook (east London) is like the wild west – biggest court house in Europe with twenty courts, some of them are always empty and the delays are ridiculous.”
In Leicester they even have a ghost court – it’s called courtroom 99. It doesn’t exist – it’s just somewhere to move the cases that won’t get heard on the day they were supposed to.
It leaves victims of crime cast adrift and questioning whether or not to pursue their case.
The chief executive of the charity Victim Support, Katie Kempen, said: “The anxiety, the pressure, the despair, the long waits actually become unbearable for victims, especially when their court date keeps moving, keeps being lost.
chief executive of Victim Support Katie Kempen
“They really prepare themselves… if they find that the case is then adjourned on the day we see real acute distress and despair, sometimes we find that victims just can’t go on and so their opportunity for justice is lost.
“When they can’t actually get that day in court and they can’t actually see justice done for the wrong they’ve been a victim of, it is just absolutely devastating.”
As we leave down the newly gritted steps of the court building in Leicester another man who works for the Crown Prosecution Service (CPS) stops to chat – also intrigued by our presence.
“It’ll take years to fix,” he says gloomily. “Actually probably a decade.”
The UK’s economic slowdown gathered further momentum during the third quarter of the year with growth of just 0.1%, according to an early official estimate that makes horrific reading for the chancellor.
The Office for National Statistics (ONS) reported a surprise contraction for economic output during September of -0.1% – with some of the downwards pressure being applied by the cyber attack disruption to production at Jaguar Land Rover.
The figures for July-September followed on the back of a 0.3% growth performance over the previous three months and the 0.7% expansion achieved between January and March.
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Growth ‘slightly worse than expected’
The encouraging start to 2025 was soon followed by the worst of Donald Trump’s trade war salvoes and the implementation of budget measures that placed employers on the hook for £25bn of extra taxes.
Economists have blamed those factors since for pushing up inflation and harming investment and employment.
ONS director of economic statistics, Liz McKeown, said: “Growth slowed further in the third quarter of the year with both services and construction weaker than in the previous period. There was also a further contraction in production.
“Across the quarter as a whole, manufacturing drove the weakness in production. There was a particularly marked fall in car production in September, reflecting the impact of a cyber incident, as well as a decline in the often-erratic pharmaceutical industry.
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What next for the UK economy?
“Services were the main contributor to growth in the latest quarter, with business rental and leasing, live events and retail performing well, partially offset by falls in R&D [research and development] and hair and beauty salons.”
When measured by per head of population- a preferred measure of living standards – zero growth was registered during the third quarter.
The weaker-than-expected figures will add fuel to expectations that the Bank of England can cut interest rates at its December meeting after November’s hold.
The vast majority of financial market participants now expect a reduction to 3.75% from 4% on 18 December.
Data earlier this week showed the UK’s unemployment rate at 5% – up from 4.1% when Labour came to power with a number one priority of growing the economy.
Since then, the government’s handling of the economy has centred on its stewardship of the public finances.
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Chancellor questioned by Sky News
The chancellor was accused by business groups of harming private sector investment and employment through hikes to minimum wage levels and employer national insurance contributions.
The Bank has backed the assertion that hiring and staff retention has been hit as a result of those extra costs.
There is also evidence that rising employment costs have been passed on to consumers and contributed to the UK’s stubbornly high rate of inflation of 3.8% – a figure that is now expected to ease considerably in the coming months.
Rachel Reeves has blamed other factors – such as Brexit and the US trade war – for weighing on the economy, leaving her facing a similar black hole to the one she says she inherited from the Conservatives.
Her second budget is due on 26 November.
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She said of the latest economic data: “We had the fastest-growing economy in the G7 in the first half of the year, but there’s more to do to build an economy that works for working people.
“At my budget later this month, I will take the fair decisions to build a strong economy that helps us to continue to cut waiting lists, cut the national debt and cut the cost of living.”
Shadow chancellor Sir Mel Stride responded: “Today’s ONS figures show the economy shrank in the latest month, under a Prime Minister and Chancellor who are in office but not in power.”
The Scottish government and For Women Scotland’s long-running legal battle over the definition of a woman is yet to come to a close.
For Women Scotland (FWS) won the case in April when the country’s highest court ruled “woman” and “sex” in the Equality Act 2010 refers to “a biological woman and biological sex”.
The Scottish government was ordered to pay a portion of the campaign group’s legal costs.
FWS told Sky News the bill of costs for the Supreme Court element of the case was more than £270,000, however various parts have reportedly been disputed by the Scottish government.
That has now been submitted to the court for determination and a decision is awaited.
Pic: PA
The Outer and Inner House element of the case at the Court of Session in Edinburgh was said to be more than £150,000.
Trina Budge, co-director of FWS, said the group is also due an uplift – a small percentage of the final expenses awarded.
Ms Budge claimed Scottish ministers are yet to enter into any negotiations on settlement and a date has been set in January for a hearing before the Auditor of the Court of Session to confirm the amount the government will have to pay.
Ms Budge said: “The delay always suits the paying party but I think it’s quite unusual to decline to enter into any discussions at all.
“It’s highly likely this is a deliberate tactic in the hope of starving us of funds to prevent us continuing our latest case on the lawfulness of housing male prisoners on the female estate.
“However, it should come as no surprise to the government that we have massive support and we will, of course, be continuing regardless of any sharp practices.”
Susan Smith and Marion Calder, co-directors of For Women Scotland, outside the Supreme Court in London in April. Pic: PA
It is understood the bill of costs for the Supreme Court case was lodged by FWS in August, while the expenses linked to the Court of Session action was submitted in September.
Figures revealed by a recent Freedom of Information (FOI) request show the Scottish government has spent at least £374,000 on the case.
Final costs are yet to be confirmed but will be published once complete.
A Scottish government spokesperson said: “There is an established process to be undertaken to agree the final costs for a legal case and these will be calculated and published in due course.”
In August, FWS lodged fresh action at the Court of Session.
The group claimed Holyrood’s guidance on transgender pupils in schools and the Scottish Prison Service’s (SPS) policy on the management of transgender people in custody were both in “clear breach of the law” and “inconsistent” with the Supreme Court judgment.
The following month, the Scottish government issued updated guidance which said schools across the nation must provide separate toilets for boys and girls on the basis of biological sex.
If possible, schools can also provide gender neutral toilets for transgender students.
However, court proceedings continue over transgender prisoners.
Current SPS guidance allows for a transgender woman to be admitted into the female estate if the inmate does not meet the violence against women and girls criteria, and there is no other basis “to suppose” they could pose an “unacceptable risk of harm” to those also housed there.
First Minister John Swinney and Justice Secretary Angela Constance have both dodged questions on the case, citing it would be inappropriate to comment on live court proceedings.
Justice Secretary Angela Constance and First Minister John Swinney. Pic: PA
On Tuesday, Ms Constance was accused by former Scottish Tory leader Douglas Ross of “misleading” Holyrood, saying she could give full answers under contempt of court legislation.
Scottish Tory MSP Tess White, the party’s equalities spokesperson, added she was “spine-chillingly concerned” of a repeat of the Isla Bryson case.
The case of Isla Bryson sparked a public outcry after the double rapist was sent to a women-only prison. Pic: PA
Bryson, a transgender woman born Adam Graham, was initially sent to a women-only prison despite being convicted of raping two women.
The offender was later transferred to the male estate following a public outcry.
Speaking to Sky News, Ms White said: “John Swinney was quick to waste taxpayers’ money fighting a case which confirmed what the vast majority of the public knew beforehand: a woman is an adult human female.”
The MSP for North East Scotland urged the SNP administration to “pay up and finally respect the clear judgment from the Supreme Court”.
A Scottish government spokesperson said: “It is the Scottish government’s long-held position that it is inappropriate for Scottish ministers to comment on live litigation.
“In all cases, we have an obligation to uphold the independence of the judiciary. We do not want the government to ever be seen as interfering in the work of the independent courts.”
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