Failure to attend warrants take ‘months’ to execute

The Public Accounts Committee report said it often takes a fortnight for the warrant to reach local police stations after a defendant has failed to show. Of the 118,000 bail warrants issued in 2002, only 45 per cent were executed by the police within three months.

“Police forces have not given appropriate priority to arresting defendants who are being prosecuted for crimes committed outside their area, so such offenders are less likely to be brought back to court,” the report said.

“Local police forces have not always given execution of warrants a priority. Some defendants interviewed by the National Audit Office did not believe that warrants for failure to attend would be acted upon, or at least not promptly and as a result were less likely to take attendance seriously.”

The report recommended that The National Criminal Justice Board (NCJB) instruct local criminal justice boards to publish data on the number and length of time warrants have been outstanding, and the proportion which relate to out of area cases. The Board should set targets and seek improvements from under-performing areas.

It also said the Office for Criminal Justice Reform should examine the possibility of attesting the defendant and bringing them back to court on the same day they have failed to turn up.

Overall the Facing Justice: tackling defendants non-attendence at court report found that 15 per cent of defendants fail to turn up for court hearings, making it the second largest reason for ineffective trials.

Edward Leigh MP, Chairman of the Committee of Public Accounts in the previous Parliament, said the findings weakened public confidence in the criminal justice system.

“Many [defendants] clearly believe that they can get away with snubbing the legal process and, disgracefully, there is some justification for that belief. Many of these defendants are not promptly brought back to court and some are never brought back.”

He said the bail process needed to be managed more effectively. “It is currently unclear, for each stage of the process, which criminal justice agency is in charge. This ‘pass the parcel’ attitude is a recipe for confusion.

“Courts are often taking decisions on whether to grant bail or remand in custody without reliable information on the defendants. Warrants for the arrest of no-show defendants can take too long to get to local police stations and local police can be too slow to make the arrests. There is scope for big improvement in each of these areas.

“The flow of information between the criminal justice agencies must be greatly improved. And all defendants must be left in no doubt that failing to turn up in court will have swift and uncomfortable consequences.”

The Committee recommended that the NCJB publish local areas’ attendance rates on the internet and ‘name and shame’ poor performers by informing the local media.

It also recommended that the NCJB agree protocols, which clearly identify the responsibilities of each criminal justice agency at every stage of the process.

ACPO said significant efforts had been made to tackle the backlog of warrants. West Yorkshire cut the number from 3,000 outstanding warrants in 2003 to 1,200 by October 2004. A pilot in Magistrate’s courts in Essex has halved the number

of ineffective trials due to the defendant’s non-appearance in year.