How did the courts backlog get so bad?
Across England and Wales, delays in the Crown Courts have become an endemic feature of the justice system. Criminal trials are scheduled years after alleged offences, with some in London now being listed as far ahead as 2029.
The most recent official statistics show that as of autumn 2025, the backlog in the Crown Court, which deals with the most serious criminal cases, had reached nearly 80,000 outstanding cases. That’s more than double the pre-pandemic figure of around 38,000 in 2019 (which itself represented a substantial backlog).
The scale of the backlog is what has prompted the government’s contentious proposals to reduce the use of jury trials. The courts and tribunals bill recently passed its second reading in the Commons, with dozens of Labour MPs abstaining.
Delays are significantly longer in the Crown Court than in the magistrates’ courts, which deal with lower-level offending. Magistrates deal with high-volume, relatively straightforward offences such as motoring offences, minor assaults or low value thefts, with higher rates of guilty pleas and no juries.
Court delays have consequences for all parties involved. Research suggests that prolonged criminal proceedings can worsen victims’ trauma and increase the likelihood that they withdraw from the prosecution process.
Delays also place a significant strain on the lives and mental health of defendants. This is particularly true for those held on remand awaiting trial. The number of people on remand increased by 84% between 2019 and 2024, partly because of court backlogs, placing additional pressure on the prison estate.
How did we get here?
Although the pandemic undoubtedly worsened the situation, the roots of the backlog run deeper. The current crisis reflects several pressures that have built up over more than a decade.
One widely cited factor is reduced court capacity. Following the 2008 financial crisis, the Ministry of Justice experienced some of the largest spending reductions in Whitehall. Over the 2010s, its budget fell by around 12% in real terms. Dozens of courts were closed across England and Wales as part of efforts to reduce costs.
Infrastructure problems have also taken courtrooms out of use. A 2022 Law Society survey reported that 64% of solicitors had experienced delays caused by the poor condition of court buildings. There is a £1.3 billion maintenance backlog in the courts estate.
At the same time, the number and type of cases being sent to the Crown Court has changed. For “either-way” offences – crimes that can be tried either in the magistrates’ court or the Crown Court depending on severity – a growing proportion are now sent to the Crown Court for trial.
These include violence against the person, handling stolen goods, supply of Class B or C drugs and some less serious sexual offences. The share of these cases going to the Crown Court rose from 19% in 2016 to 24% in 2024.
Crown Court trials typically require juries and take longer to complete. As more cases move into this part of the system, pressure on court time increases.
The pandemic temporarily suspended most jury trials, and by 2022 the backlog had already nearly doubled compared with pre-pandemic levels. So limiting the use of juries may have some impact, but would not solve the wider crisis, and the proposals have faced strong criticism from the legal community.
The composition of cases has also shifted. Serious sexual and violent offences now make up a larger share of the Crown Court caseload than before the pandemic. The backlog of sexual offence cases increased by 40% between 2023 and 2025. These cases are often contested and require longer trials, further slowing the system.
A reduced legal system
Another structural pressure has been the reduction in lawyers and judges, linked to wider funding cuts across the legal system since 2008. For much of the past decade, legal aid rates for criminal work were largely frozen. Many lawyers argued that the work became financially unsustainable, particularly for junior barristers. Some left criminal practice entirely. In 2022, criminal barristers took the unprecedented step of going on strike over legal aid funding.
England and Wales also have comparatively few professional judges – around three per 100,000 people – compared with a European average of about 22 per 100,000. This partly reflects the extensive use of magistrates (lay judges) for less serious offending, but fewer judges and lawyers inevitably limits how many cases can be heard.
Most jurisdictions experienced pandemic-related backlogs, but England and Wales appear unusual in how strongly pre-existing structural pressures contributed to the crisis. Across the European court system, the median criminal case clearance rate post-COVID is about 95-100%, depending on court type and level. This means that cases are resolved at a similar pace to new cases entering the system. In Germany, the clearance rate is over 100%, meaning that backlogs are being reduced year on year. The clearance rate for England and Wales is 91%, meaning that the backlog continues to grow.
In the US, COVID also created significant case backlogs. However, at the federal level, case backlogs had returned to pre-pandemic levels by March 2022 (though longer delays remain at local and state levels). Even the highest average disposition times for felony cases in the US sit at around 350 days from offence to outcome, compared with 695 days on average from offence to completion of the case in the Crown Court.
The US, along with Canada, New Zealand, Australia and several European jurisdictions, continued to use more remote or hybrid hearings post-pandemic, which helped reduce backlogs. England and Wales reverted more heavily to in-person hearings. Retired senior judge Brian Leveson’s review into the courts’ backlog recommends more widespread use of remote hearings as part of the solution.
Recent governments have introduced measures aimed at reducing delays, including increasing the number of court sitting days and recruiting more judges. Sitting days in 2024-25 were the highest for a decade. Even so, the government has said it could take a decade to reduce the backlog to pre-COVID levels. Even with increased investment and efficiency reforms, or indeed reducing the use of jury trials, delays are likely to remain a long-term challenge for the justice system.
Daniel Alge does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.