Sarah Sackman

The hon. Member is right: a backlog is a backlog, irrespective of the offence. The victims in all these cases might be of a different nature— they might be animals, or they might be humans—but local a

Early legal advice is absolutely essential to access to justice, and that is why one of the first actions we took when I became the Minister responsible for legal aid was to give legal aid lawyers del

My hon. Friend is absolutely right to say that cross-criminal justice system working between the police, the Crown Prosecution Service, the judiciary and our Courts Service is vital. I know that steps

We recognise the vital role that high street law firms play in serving communities such as Scarborough and Whitby, and I greatly valued the meeting that we had, in which my hon. Friend raised a number

I speak as a fellow London MP and agree that the waiting lists in our London courts are appalling, because behind each and every one of those cases in the backlog there are victims, witnesses and defe

In Croydon, as elsewhere, we are taking a three-pronged approach to reducing the Crown court waiting list. That involves increasing Crown court capacity, removing the financial constraint on sitting d