On Friday Linguist Lounge’s Facebook page carried a disturbing report on the abysmal quality of interpreters – or more specifically one interpreter – used by Capita Translation & interpreting. It is reproduced in its full horror below.
We’ve received a report that today Capita sent an unqualified Portuguese interpreter to a court in England. The linguist is reported to have summarised court proceedings, using English terms for unknown words such as “guardian”, “placement”, “local authority”. The judge was said to have been made aware of this after the hearing, however, the defendant was left stressed and anxious, without any understanding of what was going on inside the court room.
When is the Ministry of Justice going to terminate its failing contract with Crapita? Will that have to wait until a change of government next year?
In the meantime Crapita will continue to be rewarded for poor service and public money will continue to be wasted.