§ Mr. GunnellTo ask the Parliamentary Secretary, Lord Chancellor's Department what arrangements are made during the period in which notes, tapes or transcripts of murder trials are held, for their safe storage and preservation.
Mr. John M. TaylorThe Lord Chancellor's Department is responsible for ensuring that a verbatim record is taken of all trials in the Crown court, as required by rule 18 of the Criminal Appeal Rules 1968. The record is taken by shorthand and/or mechanical means. Under open tender contracts with the private sector which came into effect on 1 April 1993, the responsibility for the safe storage and preservation of such records is that of the contractor whose staff took the record. The contractor is bound by the contract to ensure that the record is kept for not less than five years and to provide transcripts requested during that period. Transcripts are not automatically produced for cost reasons in any category of cases, but these may be purchased by the Department or the public from the contractor concerned.