Government blames data error for figures showing suspects trapped five years in prison without trial

The Ministry of Justice has blamed a data error after it published figures showing that 150 suspects had been trapped in jail for more than five years while awaiting trial. The remand population is currently at its highest in at least 50 years, and is a major driver of prison overcrowding, surging from 9,600 inmates to 16,200 in just four years as the courts backlog soared. Last year, 35 per cent of self-inflicted deaths in prisons were among those on remand. But experts have long warned of a lack of available government data on the issue. Despite judges being required to approve an extension every six months, it has been unclear how long people are spending behind bars before trial – as last-minute court delays increasingly see hearings postponed for months. Against this backdrop, internal government figures, obtained via freedom of information laws by the charity Fair Trials and shared with The Independent in September, appeared to show that at least 150 male suspects – 50 of them Black – had been remanded for 60 months or more, as of 31 December. Asked about their own figures – branded “just extraordinary” and “Kafkaesque” by experts – the Ministry of Justice said at the time: “These cases involving the longest waits mainly involved complex fraud or were trials with a large number of defendants, that ordinarily take a long time to prosecute.”

https://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/politics/remand-prison-waits-moj-data-error-b2442535.html

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