§ Mr. Evelyn Kingasked the Attorney-General, in regard to the last 12 months, or similar convenient period, what time on average in respect of prisoners sentenced to 12 months or less, elapsed between their conviction by the court of quarter sessions and the hearing of their appeal, as compared with a similar period five years ago.
The Attorney-GeneralThe figures for a whole year are not readily available, but sample checks have been made covering two lots of 500 consecutive cases from all courts in each of the years 1964 and 1969, from which details of cases involving prison sentences of 12 months or less have been extracted. None of these samples has revealed any significant 189W difference between Quarter Sessions and other courts, and accordingly the figures given below cover short sentence cases from all courts and include both appeals and applications for leave to appeal.
For the 1964 samples, the total number of cases was 90, of which 14 led to substantive appeals. The average interval between sentence and final disposal (including 13 days from sentence to service of notice of appeal) was 79 days. The corresponding figures for the 1969 samples are 139 cases (of which 13 led to substantive appeals) and 89 days (including 18 days from sentence to service of notice of appeal).
In 1964, 2,932 cases were registered in the Criminal Appeal Office and in 1969, 9,698.