Exclusive:Justice Denied: Demands for action on court delays as victims wait years for justice

Pandemic disruption and surge in serious complex cases add pressure to system under strain

Work to drive down crippling delays in Scotland’s criminal justice system which have left victims of serious offences waiting more than three years for court verdicts has been “too slow,” with significant investment required in order to ensure the swift administration of justice, legal experts have warned.

At Scotland’s High Court, which hears the most serious criminal cases, it is now commonplace for two and a half years to pass before the wheels of justice determine an accused’s guilt or innocence, with the lengthy waits indicative of the complex, interlinked challenges facing a system where pressures stemming from the Covid-19 pandemic are being exacerbated by a surge in serious criminal cases.

The median time from offence to verdict across Scotland's supreme criminal court stood at 951 days in the second quarter of 2024/25, the latest period for which statistics are available. That represents a near 100 per cent increase compared to the same period in 2019/20, when the figure stood at 482 days.

The wait is even more prolonged for victims of sexual offences. The median High Court wait from offence to verdict in non-historic ‘group two’ sexual offences - which includes rape and sexual assault - has jumped from 577 to 1,034 days.

The Scotsman's week-long series is scrutinising pressures in the criminal justice system. | TSPL

Advocate Thomas Ross KC, one of Scotland’s most experienced criminal trial counsel, warned that the situation would only get worse, and said no one in the system was “thinking outside of the box” in an attempt to address the delays.

Read more: Progress on court delays but outlook challenging

However, justice secretary Angela Constance said the number of outstanding scheduled trials had fallen by more than 50 per cent since the peak of the pandemic, while the Crown Office and Procurator Fiscal Service (COPFS) said addressing delays was a “priority,” with modernising reforms allowing cases to be concluded earlier.

Scrutiny of the delays - the first part of Justice Denied, The Scotsman’s week-long series focusing on pressures in the criminal justice system - comes as work continues to address a wider backlog of cases in the wake of the pandemic. While the number of scheduled trials has been reduced from a peak of 43,606 in January 2022 to 21,862 as of December 2024, progress has slowed, with the number of outstanding scheduled High Court trials bucking the trend, having increased to a high of 744.

Data compiled by the COPFS and the Scottish Courts and Tribunal Service (SCTS) shows challenges also remain acute across Scotland’s six sheriffdoms, where the majority of criminal cases are dealt with. The median time from offence to verdict across solemn cases was over 18 months in Q2 2024/25 compared to less than 10 months five years previously. As in the High Court, some of the lengthiest waiting times relate to non-historic sexual crimes, up to 674 days from 456.

Even when comparing the statistics on a year-on-year basis to account for quarterly discrepancies, the median time from offence to verdict in the High Court was 1,015 days in 2023/24, up from 520 in 2019/20. For solemn business in sheriff courts, the wait went from 283 days to 565 days.

Scotland's criminal justice system is continuing to wrestle with unprecedented challenges that mean serious criminal cases are still taking years to conclude. Picture: Jeff J Mitchell/Getty | Getty Images

One factor behind the delays is the amount of time matters sit with the COPFS before a court registration, with that interval doubling from 245 days to 490 days for High Court cases, and rising from 190 to 302 days for sheriff solemn proceedings.

Mr Ross told The Scotsman it was “terrible” that victims of alleged rape offences were having to wait three years for an outcome, and pointed out that the delays also impacted accused, with “people remanded two to a cell in Barlinnie for two years waiting for their trial.”

He said that even before the unprecedented disruption wrought by Covid-19, the 140 day time bar - a central tenet of Scots law which requires a trial to start within 140 days of the accused being committed - was not being routinely met, with the situation deteriorating since.

“The court diary is so crowded that you are unlikely to get a trial within nine months of the preliminary hearing, sometimes 12 months, whatever the time bars were,” he explained.

Mr Ross, a former president of the Scottish Bar Association, said that while the SCTS made “extraordinary efforts” to ensure trials ran during the pandemic, there were questions for the COPFS.

The number of scheduled High Courts trials has continued to creep upwards. Picture: PA | PA

“The Crown Office has more or less carried on as normal in the face of the pandemic,” he said. “It could have made it more attractive for accused persons to plead guilty and get cases out of the system - but there has been no sign of that.”

Mr Ross also said he proposed the creation of a dedicated drug trafficking court that would have taken “hundreds of cases” out of the system, but received no interest. “Nobody is thinking out of the box,” he added. “The figures will simply continue to get worse.”

Tony Lenehan, vice-dean of the Faculty of Advocates, said that with sexual offences occupying a significant tranche of the High Court’s time, and the bar and SCTS working “flat out” to service a greater throughput of cases, there was scope for change.

“Perhaps it is a time when an innovative look at yielding more plea based resolution, versus trial resolution, would be rewarding,” he suggested.

Stuart Munro, convener of the Law Society of Scotland's criminal law committee, said “significant investment” in the entire justice system was required.

Social distancing measures were put in place to allow court business to continue during the pandemic, but the delays remain significant. Picture: PA. | PA

“Everyone suffers from delays to reach a verdict in criminal matters that are often stretching to years, whether they are victims, complainers, witnesses or the accused,” he said. “Delays add to costs, undermine confidence in the system, and reduce the effectiveness of rehabilitation and other programmes.

“There has been some improvement from the peak in delays a few years ago, but the time taken for cases to complete remains far too high and much longer than was the case before the pandemic. Progress has been too slow, and we are concerned that improvement will not be maintained unless a number of outstanding issues are grappled with.”

Simon Brown, president of the Scottish Solicitors Bar Association, said the lack of numbers in the defence bar was one area that had to be addressed.

“Fewer solicitors mean less time to prepare what are often complex cases, so those cases that perhaps could have been resolved early aren’t,” he said. “There are also similar pressures in the High court, with too many cases for the available advocates, particularly senior counsel.”

Simon Brown, president of the Scottish Solicitors Bar Association. Picture: Contributed | Simon Brown

In an op-ed in today’s Scotsman, Malcolm Graham, chief executive officer of the SCTS said that while there had been “real progress” made, the outlook remained “challenging,” with “no short-term capacity to increase throughput further.”

A spokesman for the COPFS said it regarded taking action to address the delays as a “priority.”

“The pandemic had long-term consequences for the justice system,” he said. “There is much to be done to clear criminal case backlogs, with increased delays causing anxiety for victims and witnesses, particularly in cases involving sexual offences or domestic abuse.

“COPFS is working with other criminal justice agencies to address the impact of such delays, and to implement modernising reforms. Ongoing work, such as summary case management pilots in domestic abuse cases, is resulting in earlier resolutions of cases and is being expanded across the country. In appropriate cases, we are supporting the expansion of pre-recording of evidence which secures evidence at an earlier point.”

Justice secretary Angela Constance said: “I recognise the impact that delays in the justice system can have on victims and witnesses. The number of outstanding scheduled trials has fallen by more than 50 per cent since January 2022 and we continue to support justice partners to address the backlog.

“A successful pilot approach to summary case management to bring earlier resolution to victims and witnesses is being rolled out nationally, as is the Scottish Government’s £33 million digital evidence sharing capability initiative, which has seen cases coming to court and concluding quicker.

“The 2025/26 Budget, if passed by parliament, includes almost £4.2 billion across the justice system - £20.3m is allocated for justice recovery. This builds on funding of over £181.3m for justice recovery, renewal and transformation activity since 2021.”