§ Mr. BerminghamTo ask the Parliamentary Secretary, Lord Chancellor's Department what is the number of remand prisoners in England and Wales who had waited more than six months for the commencement of their trial; and what was the number of these who(a) received custodial sentence, (b) received non-custodial sentence and (c) were acquitted or not proceeded with, for the latest date for which information is available. [24374]
Mr. John M. TaylorThe question concerns a specific operational matter on which the chief executive of the Court Service is best placed to provide an answer and I have accordingly asked the chief executive to reply direct.
Letter from M. D. Huebner to Mr. Gerald Bermingham, dated 22 May 1995:
The Parliamentary Secretary, Lord Chancellor's Department, has asked me to reply to your Question about remand prisoners in England and Wales.In reply to the first part of your Question, I can tell you that in the year ending 31 March 1995, 3042 remand prisoners waited over 6 months from the date of committal to the Crown Court to the commencement of their trial.Information on the sentences of those defendants is not available and could only be obtained at disproportionate cost. However, you may like to know that in the year ending 31 March 1995, a total of 24812 defendants on remand were committed to the Crown Court for trial. Of these 73.7 per cent received custodial sentences, 18.9 per cent, received non-custodial sentences and 7.4 per cent were acquitted on all counts.