Read on Twitter
For several years now the Ministry of Justice has tried to claim that the rise in people representing themselves in Crown Court wasn& #39;t happening.
First, they tried to bury the evidence, rebutting FOIs for a report which included senior judges& #39; testimony about the people that faced them alone. https://www.buzzfeed.com/emilydugan/the-government-tried-to-bury-this-research-showing-judges">https://www.buzzfeed.com/emilyduga...
The following week it transpired (after a leak to BuzzFeed News) that they had edited out almost all of the damning detail from the original, including judges saying defendants were like "rabbits in the headlights" https://www.buzzfeed.com/emilydugan/the-government-tried-to-conceal-this-testimony-from-judges">https://www.buzzfeed.com/emilyduga...
Since then they have continued to insist that people having to defend themselves in Crown Court trials wasn& #39;t an issue. The growing evidence was dismissed as not statistically significant.
I& #39;ve yet to see what their response is to reports over the weekend that 7.7% of defendants at a first hearing last year did not have a lawyer. In 2010 the percentage was 4.9%.
This all comes back to a legal aid means test that hasn& #39;t been updated in nearly a decade. It means people on low incomes don& #39;t qualify for free legal representation when accused of crimes.
The result is people struggling in court on their own, or - as uncovered earlier this year - chased by bailiffs for legal aid contributions they cannot afford https://www.buzzfeed.com/emilydugan/moj-bailiff-company-legal-aid-payments">https://www.buzzfeed.com/emilyduga...
