The Criminal Bar Association has written to all political parties saying the system is broken and so clogged up with sex cases that "criminal justice has degraded over 25 years" and there is a "tsunami of highly sensitive sex cases" about to destroy the criminal justice system.

I have news for them; it is already destroyed. Broken. Thousands of innocent men and women clogging up our prisons.

www.thetimes.co.uk/edition/news/justice-...-sex-cases-snmzjlbjq

This paragraph sums it up.

“Our work is in the public interest, as we help judges and juries reach the right outcomes so that the guilty are convicted and the innocent acquitted. Governments for at least 25 years have allowed criminal justice to degrade, from the police service through the publicly funded part of the legal profession, the courts, to the prisons and the probation service. It is not an optional extra but an essential element in a fair and tolerant society.”

Any chance of posting the whole epistle, dear host? The article is behind a paywall.

This is the article

Leaders of 4,000 criminal barristers are warning of the ticking time bomb of sex offence cases clogging up the courts, in an open letter to political parties calling for investment in the justice system.
Leaders of the Criminal Bar Association say that without more investment by the next government, the system will be unable to deal with the deluge of sex cases that occupy 50 per cent of time in some courts.
They are issuing open letters to the main political parties saying that the rule of law depends on a properly funded court system, calling on the next administration to reverse legal aid cuts of more than 30 per cent since 2007, and invest in and recognise the importance of criminal justice.
In the past 25 years, they say, the system has been allowed to “degrade” as violent crime rises, and “the system is dealing with a tsunami of highly sensitive sex cases which are set to occupy it for years to come”.
Francis FitzGibbon, QC, chairman of the Criminal Bar Association, said: “The number of sexual abuse cases coming to the courts has been growing each year and yet this may only be the beginning. That has already placed a huge strain on public resources.
“But the bigger question is whether the criminal justice system — police, prosecutors, defence lawyers, courts, prison — can cope with more and more such cases at a time when people and resources are already stretched to their limits due to years of underfunding.
“The public’s rightful expectations will go unmet unless the system is assured of the capacity to deal with the demands placed upon it.” The association attacked judicial policy that “has been characterised for too long by hasty, ill-thought-out measures”.
It said: “Our work is in the public interest, as we help judges and juries reach the right outcomes so that the guilty are convicted and the innocent acquitted. Governments for at least 25 years have allowed criminal justice to degrade, from the police service through the publicly funded part of the legal profession, the courts, to the prisons and the probation service. It is not an optional extra but an essential element in a fair and tolerant society.”

Thanks, JK.

I don't share your approval. It's simply a begging letter from legal professionals who rely on publicly-funded work. Of course, adequate funding for defence lawyers and defence experts etc is an important factor in equality of arms between individual and state. But what about the other factors in law, practice and procedure that aim to hamstring defences and rubber-stamp prosecutions? Not a peep about any of those.

"deluge of sex cases that occupy 50 per cent of time in some courts"

That's astounding. The letter seems to give no indication that they suspect that the justice system is being abused, but perhaps they can't say that.

Yes I think it is the implication that I like. They are saying it is close to breaking point; I reckon it has already broken. But essentially they are saying politicians should wake up and do something about it.

I hope you're right about the implication, JH, but I could detect not the slightest hint of healthy scepticism about the UK's latest, prolonged sex panic.

I find I'm rather more inclined to agree with Randall. I do, however, support the reversal of the brutal cuts to legal aid brought in by that vandal Chris Grayling when he was "Justice Minister."

There wasn't the merest hint of support for the crucial points raised by Randall:

... what about the other factors in law, practice and procedure that aim to hamstring defences and rubber-stamp prosecutions? Not a peep about any of those.

Started by Mark Willy John Thomas. Setting up profiles of under 16s to lure in the weak taken on by the MET with dedicated teams of officers spending days laying in wait for the pervert talking to the 14 year old police officer and now left to the vigilantes to finish it off the end being deaths from wrongly accused to one of the vigilantie getting knifed etc by said pervert.

The man banged up for images the same images that the guy in the next cell is banged up for and the next and half the wing so get rid of the images where they are hosted and that will stop the downloaders.

Wandsworth VPU held 360 mostly sex offenders at any one time the Sex offender Register is soon to top 100 and the ppu officers looking after them are being cut but lucky for the police forces they do not have to look after a
Murderer register
Arsonist register
Mugger register
Burglers register
Fraudsters register
Drink driving register
I guess there could be more and many on the SOR have been falsely imprisoned.
Wake up the bogie man is not in the house.

pete wrote:

I find I'm rather more inclined to agree with Randall.

Always a sound strategy.

Randall has made an apt observation. I hope along with others including pete and JK that this pitiful exercise will prompt a positive reaction in spite of the usual money motivation.

Moreover, the article is "evidence" of what I have observed that 4000 barristers, highly trained, with bookselves full of nicely bound books are nonetheless useless. As there is no substance to the real "legal" and "justice" issues apart from the barristers getting more money to spend more time been useless. (There are exceptions of course like Barbara Hewson)
The article confirms to me why I constantly read about useless defenses that do not ask the right questions and challenge the system where they are prevented from doing so.

I tend to be so delighted when anybody agrees that the system is broken that I don't worry if they may not be seeing all the reasons. The cuts in Legal Aid is clearly one of many reasons. It is not for Barristers to highlight that the law needs changing (one person's word being sufficient "evidence" - a disgrace). Nor that police behaviour has stretched beyond legal assistance into possibly criminal conspiracy. Nor that the CPS needs a massive overhaul (as indeed does the CCRC). But at least one other serious problem - the inaffordability of legal help, as illustrated by the Kato Harris decision - is raised by a very credible association.