Absent interpreters delay 642 court cases in 2012

The Independent reports today that more than 500 court cases are being thrown out or delayed each week due to failings by prosecutors or in the court system.

Government figures reveal that a total 106,859 cases before crown and magistrates’ courts were dropped or delayed in 2012, costing the public purse an estimated £17.4 mn.

Of this total the absence of an interpreter was responsible for delays to 642 cases in the year in question.

No doubt Helen Grant MP and her colleagues at the Ministry of Justice will attribute these interpreter absences as “teething troubles” with its contract with Capita Translation & Interpreting, rather than a sign of the latter’s total incompetence and yet more evidence that it was wrong to fiddle with the previous arrangements with interpreting services for courts and tribunals in the first place.