Prosecutions

(asked on 29th October 2019) - View Source

Question to the Ministry of Justice:

To ask the Secretary of State for Justice, how many cases that collapsed on the day of the trial there were (a) in each month in 2019 and (b) in 2018 and (c) in 2010.


Answered by
Chris Philp Portrait
Chris Philp
Minister of State (Home Office)
This question was answered on 4th November 2019

The information requested about how many cracked cases there have been (a) in each month in 2019 and (b) in 2018 and (c) in 2010:

Please find attached tables providing:

- Number of cracked trials at the magistrates’ court and Crown Court in England and Wales in each month for the years 2010, 2018 and 2019

Table 1: Number of cracked trials in criminal courts, by court type and months – 2010, 2018 and 2019

Year

Month

Magistrates' court

Crown Court

2010

January

5,820

1,520

February

5,532

1,496

March

6,371

1,687

April

5,720

1,421

May

5,401

1,459

June

6,122

1,642

July

6,005

1,569

August

5,740

1,595

September

6,202

1,694

October

6,043

1,493

November

5,965

1,722

December

4,525

1,091

2018

January

4,429

1,164

February

3,800

951

March

3,897

811

April

4,050

903

May

4,056

890

June

4,282

815

July

4,162

923

August

3,886

879

September

3,901

751

October

4,329

922

November

4,019

816

December

2,775

530

2019

January

4,241

890

February

3,632

711

March

3,829

717

April

3,558

702

May

3,434

668

June

3,367

696

Notes:

1) The total number of cracked trials listed during the reporting period indicated.

2) Cracked trial is a trial that does not go ahead on the day as an outcome is reached and so does not need to be re-scheduled. This occurs when an acceptable plea is offered by the defendant or the prosecution offers no evidence against the defendant.

3) Due to changes in data processing and timing of data extraction, figures for 2010 data may differ slightly from published information - the difference is small and relates to only one or two cases.

4) Latest published data available to June 2019.

Source: Criminal Court Statistics (PQ 7113)

For more detailed data on trials in the courts for England and Wales, the Ministry of Justice does publish annual data on trials in the magistrates’ courts for England and Wales, including numbers of effective trials and the key reasons for cracked trials and ineffective trials. This is available at https://www.gov.uk/government/statistics/criminal-court-statistics-annual-january-to-march-2018

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