questionText: To ask the Secretary of State for Justice, if she will make an assessment of the reasons for which the number of cases that have been declared ineffective as a result of poor case preparation has increased since 2021; and what steps she is taking to help support the sector in reducing this.
answerText: Official Statistics (Criminal Court Statistics Quarterly) show that in 2024, of the 31,158 trials in the Crown Courts, 665 trials were ineffective due to witness unavailability and 1,637 trials were ineffective due to defendant unavailability. These figur...
heading: Trials: Standards