Why is there such an enormous backlog of criminal cases in the British courts?
A very large proportion of the defendants in cases being heard in our busiest courts have surnames which might shed light on the nature of the crime-wave engulfing this country.
Venue Hearings Unique cases Hearings per case
Central Criminal Court 7,816 533 14.3
Southwark 5,007 806 6.2
Snaresbrook 4,546 1,638 2.8
Manchester Minshull St 4,348 860 5.0
Birmingham 3,826 970 3.9
Isleworth + Wood Green (1) ~6,800 β high
1. combined London Effect
The Defendant Profile in the Bottleneck Courts
Top 12 standardised surnames across the five most grid-locked venues (full-year data):
Rank Surname Total hearings in these 5 courts
1 Khan 692
2 Hussain 568
3 Ahmed 520
4 Ali 452
5 Mohammed 433
6 Singh 392
7 Smith "328 (down-ranked because spread nationally)
"
8β12 Iqbal, Rahman, Uddin, Begum, Malik β All in top 20
known demographic profile of:
Class A drugs supply (heroin, cocaine) networks
Certain types of organised robbery and firearms conspiracies
Some terrorism and public-order cases
A dozen more prisoners are released by mistake, and the buck stops with David Lammy
Over a month after he promised that no more prisoners would be released in error, twelve more have been freed on the Secretary of State for Justiceβs watch