Shropshire Star comment: Our court system is now failing
Shropshire’s courts are at breaking point.
And if you interpret justice as meaning fairness, then Salopians going through the courts process are not getting a fair deal.
Yet while there is reason to be outraged about the state of affairs, because most Shropshire folk don’t get to see or experience the problems first hand, it is one of those out of sight and out of mind crises.
Midland Circuit Judge Anthony Lowe, who sits at Shrewsbury Crown Court, does get to see what is happening. He is an eyewitness, and clearly feels things are so bad that he has to speak out.
“Everywhere you look, our justice system is beginning to be not fit for purpose. Slow justice is bad justice.”
For those who can remember how things once were, the decline has been sad. The Crown Courts at Shrewsbury ran smoothly.
And there were magistrates courts in towns across Shropshire, delivering swift, local justice. No more. They have almost all closed.
Remand cases are even exported to Kidderminster.
That particular measure has been dressed up as something that will improve waiting times for victims and witnesses.
The suspicion is though that what is really behind it is an ideological desire to save money.
There have been many complaints, but it’s as if Salopians are just little people so far as officialdom is concerned.
It is welcome then that Judge Lowe has chosen to go public.
He is not somebody who can be dismissed as some parochial rural moaner.
Judge Lowe was speaking after a case involving a Shrewsbury man, already a year old, which has had to be put off until February. One of the causes for the delay was that one of the two Crown Court rooms at Shrewsbury was closed all this week because two judges are on leave.
The defendant is an innocent man under the law unless and until proven otherwise and will now have his life blighted for yet another six months.
Our courts are not working as they should and justice is being denied as a consequence.
