The short answer
The Crown Court backlog has roughly doubled since 2019. The Ministry of Justice recorded 73,105 outstanding cases in December 2024, and the figure passed 76,000 by mid 2025, with some trials being listed years ahead. The department has acknowledged that the backlog would continue to grow even if the courts operated at maximum capacity. Sitting days have been increased to a record allocation, and the government commissioned the Leveson review to consider structural reform, including restricting jury trial in some categories of case. For practitioners, delay has become a factor in case strategy rather than a background irritation.
The numbers
- 73,105 outstanding Crown Court cases recorded in December 2024, up around 10% year on year
- 38,016 the pre-pandemic figure in 2019, roughly half the current level
- Over 76,000 by the time the Leveson review reported in July 2025
- 110,000 Crown Court sitting days, a record allocation, up from 106,500
- 9 July 2025: Leveson review Part 1 published, describing a system in crisis
- December 2025: government response proposing to curtail jury trial for offences likely to attract under three years
How bad are court delays UK?
Bad enough that the Ministry of Justice has said increasing capacity alone will not fix it.
The Crown Court is where the problem is most acute and best documented. Outstanding cases stood at 73,105 in December 2024, an increase of around 10% on the 66,426 recorded at the end of 2023, and close to double the pre-pandemic figure of 38,016 in 2019. By the time the Leveson review reported in July 2025 the caseload had passed 76,000, with trials being listed years into the future. We covered the point at which the figure approached 80,000 cases.
Capacity has been added. Crown Court sitting days rose from 106,500 to 108,500 in one financial year, followed by a record allocation of 110,000. The department’s own assessment, however, was blunt: even at maximum capacity the backlog would continue to grow.
That is the important point, and the one most commentary misses. This is not a queue that will clear if the courts sit for longer. Demand exceeds capacity structurally, which is why the policy response has moved from resourcing to redesign.
Why capacity is not just about judges
Because a courtroom that cannot open is a courtroom that does not sit, however many sitting days have been allocated.
The condition of the court estate contributes directly to lost capacity, and the examples are stark. Birmingham’s Victoria Magistrates’ Court, the largest magistrates’ court in the country, lost 4,176 courtroom days between May 2022 and January 2024 because of a fire alarm system failure. Nottingham Crown Court closed in January 2025 over problems with its heating and fire alarm systems.
Part 2 of the Leveson review addressed the maintenance backlog in the physical estate alongside its procedural recommendations, which is a recognition that some of the lost time has nothing to do with law or listing practice at all.
Does delay breach the right to a fair trial?
Article 6 of the European Convention on Human Rights guarantees a hearing within a reasonable time, but the practical remedies for breach are narrower than practitioners sometimes expect.
In criminal proceedings the general position is that a breach of the reasonable time requirement does not by itself entitle a defendant to have proceedings stayed. A stay is reserved for cases where a fair trial is no longer possible, or where it would otherwise be unfair to try the defendant at all. Other remedies, including a reduction in sentence or a declaration, are the more usual response. Anyone advancing a delay argument should check the current authority carefully, because the line between prejudice that founds a stay and prejudice that sounds in mitigation is where these applications are won and lost.
The more immediate professional issue is not doctrinal. It is that the passage of time is not neutral in its effect on the evidence.
What does delay do to a criminal case?
It degrades the evidence, and it does so asymmetrically.
Witness recollection deteriorates, and the deterioration is uneven between witnesses and between issues, which complicates cross-examination in ways that are hard to anticipate. Digital material has retention limits that may expire before trial. Witnesses move, become unwilling, or become unavailable. Defendants spend extended periods on remand or subject to bail conditions, and the Victims’ Commissioner has documented the effect of prolonged waits on victims and witnesses.
Practically, that means a criminal practitioner facing a long listing should be doing preservation work early rather than at the point of trial preparation:
- Take full proofs while recollection is fresh, and date them
- Identify digital material with retention deadlines and secure it before those deadlines pass
- Record contemporaneously what a witness could and could not remember, because that record becomes the evidence of what delay cost
- Keep the client engaged over a period measured in years rather than months, because disengagement is itself a risk to the case
How does delay change civil litigation strategy?
It shifts settlement decisions away from legal merit and towards cost exposure and commercial certainty.
A claim worth pursuing on the law may not be worth pursuing on the timetable, particularly for a commercial client carrying the cost and the uncertainty on its balance sheet for the duration. The result is that delay operates as a form of pressure independent of the merits, and it does not press equally on both sides. A well-resourced defendant can absorb delay in a way a claimant funding litigation cannot.
Two structural changes have sharpened this. Fixed recoverable costs, extended in October 2023 to most claims up to £100,000, cap what a winning party recovers regardless of how long the case takes. And since October 2024 the courts can order parties to engage in alternative dispute resolution, with ADR now written into the overriding objective itself. Our guide to the Civil Procedure Rules covers both.
Taken together, those changes mean that a litigator advising on a civil claim in 2026 is advising on three variables rather than one: the merits, the recoverable costs, and the time. ADR is no longer only a procedural expectation. For many claims it is the commercially rational route.
Why does delay matter most in family cases?
Because interim arrangements acquire weight simply by lasting.
Where a matter takes a long time to reach final determination, the arrangements put in place at an early stage become the status quo, and a status quo that has run for a year or more is difficult to disturb. The effect is that early positioning carries more weight than the procedural framework implies, and a party who secures favourable interim arrangements may effectively have secured much of the outcome.
That is a distortion rather than a design feature, and it is the reason delay in family proceedings is treated as a distinct problem rather than a slower version of the same problem elsewhere.
What is being done about it?
The most significant response is the Leveson review, and its recommendations go well beyond resourcing.
Sir Brian Leveson was commissioned in December 2024 to review the criminal courts. Part 1, the policy review, was published on 9 July 2025 and described a system in crisis. Its recommendations were structural: diverting more cases out of the court system through out-of-court resolutions for lower level offending, expanding deferred prosecution, reducing the right of appeal from the magistrates’ courts, and restricting the availability of jury trial in certain categories including some fraud cases. Part 2 addressed efficiency, legal aid funding structures and the court estate.
The government responded in December 2025 with a package including a proposal to curtail jury trials for offences likely to attract a sentence of less than three years.
Where the profession disagrees
Support for tackling delay is universal. Support for this method is not.
The Law Society has welcomed increased sitting days, video infrastructure investment and additional court staff, while arguing that the proposals go too far in eroding the right to jury trial and that lasting reform requires sustained funding rather than rushed legislation. The Bar Council has welcomed diversion from the criminal justice system while opposing the removal of jury trial.
For criminal practitioners this is not abstract. If enacted, restrictions of this kind change the forum, the preparation and the fee structure for a substantial share of a defence caseload. The wider reform picture is set out in our guide to Ministry of Justice reforms.
When delay is the court’s fault
Administrative failure by the court is a different problem from systemic backlog, and it has its own remedy.
Where a court processing failure causes a party to miss a deadline, that can amount to a good reason at the second stage of the Denton test on an application for relief from sanctions. It is not a complete answer, and promptness in applying matters more than fault, but it is a distinct route that gets confused with general delay. We cover it in our guide to court administrative error and relief from sanctions.
Frequently asked questions
How big is the Crown Court backlog?
The Ministry of Justice recorded 73,105 outstanding Crown Court cases in December 2024, close to double the pre-pandemic figure of 38,016 in 2019. The caseload passed 76,000 by mid 2025.
Why are court delays getting worse despite more sitting days?
Because demand exceeds capacity structurally. Sitting days rose to a record 110,000, but the Ministry of Justice has said the backlog would continue to grow even if the Crown Courts operated at maximum capacity. Lost capacity from the condition of the court estate compounds the problem.
Can you get a case stayed for delay?
Only in narrow circumstances. Article 6 guarantees a hearing within a reasonable time, but in criminal proceedings a breach does not by itself entitle a defendant to a stay. A stay is generally reserved for cases where a fair trial is no longer possible, with other remedies such as sentence reduction being the more usual response.
What is the Leveson review proposing?
Part 1, published in July 2025, recommended diverting cases out of the court system, expanding deferred prosecution, reducing the right of appeal from magistrates’ courts, and restricting jury trial in certain categories. The government’s December 2025 response included curtailing jury trial for offences likely to attract under three years.
How should delay change litigation strategy?
By making time a variable alongside merits and costs. In criminal work that means early evidence preservation. In civil work it means factoring cost exposure and the now express power to order ADR into settlement decisions. In family work it means recognising that interim arrangements gain weight the longer they last.
Is delay caused by the court a defence to missing a deadline?
It can be a good reason at the second stage of the Denton test on an application for relief from sanctions, but it is not automatic. The court still considers all the circumstances, and how promptly the party applied for relief often matters more than whose fault the original problem was.
The practical takeaway
Delay has stopped being a background condition and become a variable to advise on. The figures are large enough, and the official assessment candid enough, that a practitioner who treats a listing date as reliable is not advising the client accurately.
The work that follows is unglamorous and mostly early: preserve evidence before it degrades, price the time as well as the merits, and be honest with clients at the outset about how long this will actually take. The reform debate will run for years. The cases will not wait for it.