Courts: Coronavirus

(asked on 28th September 2020) - View Source

Question to the Ministry of Justice:

To ask the Secretary of State for Justice, what steps he has taken to mitigate the risk of increased victim attrition from court cases as a result of the covid-19 outbreak.


Answered by
Alex Chalk Portrait
Alex Chalk
Lord Chancellor and Secretary of State for Justice
This question was answered on 1st October 2020

The Ministry of Justice (MoJ) is committed to understanding and mitigating the impact that Covid-19 is having on victims’ engagement with the justice system. We know that victim support services have a vital role to play in ensuring victims continue to engage with the criminal justice process. In recognition of this, we have distributed £22m as part of the £76m government package for charities supporting vulnerable people including victims of sexual violence and domestic abuse, made almost £600k of funding available to assist helpline services, and committed an additional £3m per annum to Independent Sexual Violence advisers until 2022.

Significant progress has been made over the last 18 months to increase the scale of the Section 28 (pre-recorded cross examination) service, with the most recent extension to a third wave of Crown Courts, bringing the total to 34 Section 28 enabled courts across England and Wales. The Section 28 service is now available to at least one court in every Her Majesty’s Courts and Tribunals (HMCTS) region. HMCTS aim to complete a national roll out of this service to all Crown Courts by the end of this year, to vulnerable victims and witnesses. There is real benefit in having this service available to support more victims and witnesses in giving their best evidence.

Following the prioritisation of domestic abuse cases by HMCTS, the MoJ coordinated the development of a triage process for trials listed in the Magistrates’ Courts prior to 28 March. The triage process aims to maximise the effectiveness of court hearings through early identification of issues and a clear understanding of the needs of victims and witnesses in domestic abuse cases.

Reticulating Splines