Kent’s Crown Courts are ‘going in the right direction’ despite its backlog more than doubling in 10 years, the Leader of the South Eastern Circuit has said.
New analysis by the Law Society of England and Wales found open cases in Maidstone and Canterbury Crown Courts more than doubled from 1,451 in 2016 to 3,046 in 2025.
The analysis also found the average time to complete a case has risen from 597 days in 2016, to 770 days in 2025.
Claire Davies KC is Leader of the South Eastern Circuit and this week was elected to become the Bar Council’s Vice Chair for 2027.
In response to the latest Law Society analysis, Claire Davies KC said: “Maidstone Crown Court has suffered as a result of not having a full complement of judges for some time – this position has now changed.
“Since the increase in sitting days, Maidstone Crown Court has benefitted as it moved work into both Southwark and Woolwich Crown Courts, which improved the outstanding case load and has been described as highly successful.
“Some 194 trials have been completed, and Maidstone has the lowest outstanding number of cases since June 2024, and lowest outstanding trials since August 2024.
“Canterbury have also been using an additional court room which has helped with their outstanding case load.
“The reality is this all demonstrates that juries are not the issue, but courtroom space is. Kent’s future is going in the right direction.”
The Bar Council argues that the Ministry of Justice should be focusing its attentions on refurbishing and modernising courts across the board to cut criminal backlogs, rather than pursuing its plans to reduce jury trials.
Our ‘Justice needs juries’ campaign argues there is no evidence restricting the right to jury trials will reduce the current Crown Court backlog of 80,000 cases.
We need urgent investment to address the inefficiencies in the system so that criminal trials are no longer delayed by crumbling court buildings, or the failure of prisoner transport to bring defendants to court on time.
ENDS
Notes to editors