Robbie Moore

I wholeheartedly agree with the hon. Member. For a witness or a victim or survivor of a crime who has gone through a lengthy court process to then have to pay what is sometimes a huge cost for the transcript of those proceedings to be made available to them is deeply unfair. A victim or a witness participates in only part of the court proceeding and is therefore unable to fully understand the complexities of the case or the contributions to it that other witnesses may have made. They are able to gain a full understanding of it only once the full transcript has been made available to them. That brings me to a key point, which is that the unduly lenient licensing scheme means that victims and victims’ families have just 28 days to appeal the sentences of their abusers. Having court transcripts is a vital part of the appeal process, so the current system creates another huge barrier to justice for victims and their families, because it might only be once they have looked at the transcript that they decide to appeal to the Attorney General against an unduly lenient sentence. Another significant reason for delays is the technology being used to record and produce these transcripts, because some courtrooms are still using tape recorders to produce transcripts. The need to create a justice system fit for the digital age is not a new one. A 2022 report by the Justice Committee described the situation on court transcripts as unsatisfactory and recommended that HMCTS should explore whether greater use of technology, such as AI-powered transcription, could be piloted to establish whether it can be used to reduce the cost of producing court transcripts.