Magistrates' Courts to Sit Evenings to Reduce Coronavirus Backlog

HMCTS has announced its intention to introduce evening Magistrates' Courts sessions in an effort to alleviate the coronavirus case backlog.

According to The Law Society Gazette, HMCTS said it was in the "final stages" of formulating its plan for the additional sittings, which would run on Monday to Friday evenings between 5 and 8 pm.

Mr Latham said that cases listed in the evening would require minimal involvement of legal representatives.

As reported in one of our earlier articles, many Magistrates' Courts have already introduced additional Saturday sittings this month. These extra sessions have focused primarily on non-CPS cases, some of which do not require the attendance of a prosecutor.

HMCTS has reported that around 22,000 cases are currently being handle by Magistrates' Courts every week, which is down from around 34,000 a week before the coronavirus outbreak.

Some areas must be having more success than others because colleagues on my bench have been told that we are handling around 90 percent of the normal workload with the exception of trials.

Personally I don't think I'll be volunteering for an evening on the bench unless I already have an afternoon sitting.

I am not over-enthused at the prospect of having to travel an hour to court, in the opposite direction to my home, on an evening after work.