North Yorkshire Magistrates' Courts Facing Timebomb

The Magistrates' Courts in North Yorkshire face the prospect of becoming "utterly overwhelmed", councillors have been warned.

Members of North Yorkshire County Council, addressed by Steve Walker of the local Youth Offending Team, heard that the existing case backlog had grown to an insurmountable level as a result of the ongoing coronavirus pandemic.

The situation, Mr Walker said, was exacerbated by the recent closure of several of the county's courts, and was likely to get worse with an uplift in police numbers resulting in more cases entering the system.

Over the last five years HMCTS, in the face of vocal public opposition, has closed courts at Northallerton, Pickering and Selby.

Cases have been centralised at the remaining courts at Scarborough, Harrogate and York. Skipton Magistrates' Court, in the extreme west of the county, is still open, but has very limited work. Youth cases, which Mr Walker has a particular interest in, are currently being dealt with at only one venue.

Mr Walker told councillors: "There was a point a few months ago when we had some hundreds of children waiting in limbo for an outcome from their behaviour and of course others coming into the pipeline."

Referring to the increase in police numbers, he added: "The difficulty is that it's going to hit a court system, youth justice system, probation and the prisons which hasn't been increased, so we face a very significant potential challenge in terms of dealing with those backlogs ahead.

"If police resources are uplifted and we don't invest in additional court capacity we're potentially going to see the whole Magistrates' Court system utterly overwhelmed.

"And clearly that then presents a risk of losing public confidence because if people don't feel the system is working for them then we risk other things happening.

Councillor Bryn Grrifiths replied: "I think we're building up a delayed timebomb. I just hope we can get back on top of it as soon as possible. It really is a serious increasing problem. It is going to get worse."

Speaking to journalists after the meeting, Councillor Derek Bastiman, who chairs the committee, said that the local authority had objected to the closure of Magistrates' Courts within the county.

"It was very short-sighted", he said.

"You can't centralise everything. It's a problem that's been created. There's a good case for reopening some courts.

"I would like to see some permanently reopened, as soon as possible to clear the backlog, and get them back to full use and acting in a proper and responsible manner by the justice system."