Diane Gall’s husband, Martyn, had been out on a morning bike journey along with his associates on their standard route one winter morning in November 2020 – when he was killed by a reckless driver.
Diane and her daughters needed to wait nearly three years for her husband’s case to be heard in courtroom.
The case was postponed thrice, typically with out warning.
“You just honestly lose faith in the system,” she says.
“You feel there’s a system there that should be there to help and protect victims, to be victims’ voices, but the constant delays really take their toll on individuals and us as a family.”
The primary trial date in April 2022 was cancelled on the day and pushed 4 months later.
The day earlier than the brand new date, the household have been advised it wasn’t going forward as a result of barristers’ strike.
It was moved to November 2022, then postponed once more, earlier than finally being heard in June the next 12 months.
“You’re building yourself up for all these dates, preparing yourself for what you’re going to hear, reliving everything that has happened, and it’s retraumatising,” says Diane.
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Diane Gall’s husband, Martyn
‘Radical’ reform wanted
Diane’s watch for justice provides us an perception into what 1000’s of victims and their households are battling each day in a courtroom system cracking beneath the load of a record-high backlog.
There are 76,957 instances ready to be heard in Crown Courts throughout England and Wales, as of the top of March 2025.
To alleviate strain on the system, an unbiased overview by Sir Brian Leveson final month made various suggestions – together with creating a brand new division of the Crown Court docket often called an intermediate courtroom, made up of a decide and two magistrates, and permitting defendants to decide on to be tried by decide alone.
He stated solely “radical” reform would have an effect.
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Diane Gall
Earlier than the overview was printed, we requested 545 legal attorneys concerning the concept of a brand new tier to the Crown Court docket – 60% of them advised us a kind of Intermediate Court docket was unlikely to scale back the backlog.
“It’s moving a problem from one place to another, like moving the deck chairs on the Titanic. It’s not going to do anything,” says Stuart Nolan, chair of the Legislation Society’s legal legislation committee.
“I believe the issue with it’s lack of sources or lack of will to present the correct sources.
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Will courtroom reforms sort out backlog?
“You can say we need more staff, but they’re not just any staff, they are people with experience and training, and that doesn’t come quickly or cheap.”
As a substitute, the attorneys advised us creating an extra courtroom would hurt the standard of justice.
Chloe Jay, senior associate at Shentons Solicitors, agrees the standard of justice will probably be impacted by a brand new courtroom division that would sit and not using a jury for some offences.
She says: “The great thing about the Crown Court docket is that you’ve got two separate our bodies, one deciding the info and one deciding legislation.
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Casey Jenkins, president of London Felony Court docket Solicitors’ Affiliation
“So the jury doesn’t hear the legal arguments about what evidence should be excluded, whether something should be considered as part of the trial, and that’s what really gives you that really good, sound quality of justice, because you haven’t got one person making all the decisions together.
“Probably in an intermediate courtroom, that’s what will occur. The identical three individuals will hear these authorized arguments and make the discovering of guilt or innocence.”
Probably the most putting discovering from the survey is that 73% of legal attorneys surveyed are anxious about offences not sitting in entrance of a jury.
Casey Jenkins, president of London Felony Court docket Solicitors’ Affiliation, says this might create unconscious bias.
“There’s a real risk that people from minority backgrounds are negatively impacted by having a trial by a judge and not a jury of their peers who may have the same or similar social background to them,” she says.
“A jury trial is protection against professional judicial decisions by the state. It’s a fundamental right that can be invoked.”
As a substitute of transferring some offences to a brand new Crown Court docket tier, our survey suggests legal attorneys could be extra in favour of transferring instances to the magistrates as an alternative.
Beneath the Leveson proposals, trials for offences comparable to harmful driving, possessing an offensive weapon and theft might be moved out of the Crown Courts.
‘Catastrophic penalties’
Richard Atkinson, president of the Legislation Society, says fixing the system will solely work with truthful funding.
“It’s as important as the NHS, it’s as important as the education system,” he says. “If it crumbles, there will be catastrophic consequences.”
Ms Jenkins agrees that for too lengthy the system has been allowed to fail.
“Everyone deserves justice, this is just not the answer,” she says.
“It’s just the wrong solution to a problem that was caused by chronic, long-term under-investment in the criminal justice system, which is a vital public service.
“The one method to make sure that there’s well timed and truthful justice for everyone is to spend money on all elements of the system from the underside up: native companies, probation, restorative justice, extra funding for attorneys so we may give early recommendation, extra funding for the police in order that instances are higher ready.”
Authorities vows ‘daring and impressive reform’
“We’ve already boosted funding in our courts system, but the only way out of this crisis is bold and ambitious reform. That is why we are carefully considering Sir Brian’s bold recommendations for long-term change.
“I will not hesitate to do no matter must be achieved for the advantage of victims.”
The driver that killed Diane’s husband was eventually convicted. She wants those making decisions about the court system to remember those impacted the most in every case.
Every victim and every family.
“You do exactly really feel like a cog in a giant wheel that is out of your management,” she says. “As a result of justice delayed is justice denied.”
