Accredited official statistics

Criminal court statistics quarterly: July to September 2025

Published 18 December 2025

Applies to England and Wales

Main Points

Magistrates’ courts: increase in open caseload	Case disposal volumes remained in line with the previous year and receipt volumes decreased by 3%. Receipts remained above disposals, which resulted in an increase in the open caseload by 17% to a series peak of 373,084. Half of the open caseload were Single Justice Procedure cases and these increased by 17% on the previous year.
Crown Court: increase in open caseload	Both receipts and disposals decreased relative to the previous year (by 4% and 2% respectively). Receipts remained higher than disposals, so the open caseload increased by 9% to a series peak of 79,619.
Crown Court: increase in cases open for a year or more	The median age of open cases has increased by 14% on the previous year and 5% on the previous quarter to 175 days. The number of cases open for a year or more exceeded 20,000 cases for the first time in the series.
Trial ineffectiveness broadly stable at both the magistrates’ courts and the Crown Court	There were minimal changes to the ineffective trial rate at both the magistrates’ courts and the Crown Court. The rate has remained broadly stable at the magistrates’ courts post-COVID and since 2024 at the Crown Court (following a slight decrease from higher levels immediately post-COVID).
Timeliness from charge to completion at the magistrates’ courts has increased	The median time from charge to completion at the magistrates’ court has increased by ten days on the previous year (and by five days on the previous quarter) – rising from 44 to 54 days and reaching a post-COVID series peak.
Timeliness from charge to completion for Crown Court cases increased over the past year	The median time from charge to completion at the Crown Court was 179 days – this was largely unchanged on the previous quarter and 5% higher than the previous year. Estimates remain well above pre-COVID levels seen prior to 2020.

The technical guide to ‘Criminal court statistics’ and ‘Language interpreter and translation services in courts and tribunals’ can be found at the links below:

https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/a-guide-to-criminal-court-statistics

https://www.gov.uk/government/statistics/guide-to-language-interpreter-and-translation-services-statistics

Statistician’s comment

This report covers the period to the end of September 2025 and includes expanded data on the Single Justice Procedure, magistrates’ courts timeliness and Crown Court remand status.

The demand on the criminal courts remained high and open caseloads continued to grow. At both the magistrates’ courts and Crown Court we see new series peaks of around 373,000 and 80,000 respectively. In addition, the age of the open caseload at the Crown Court continues to increase, with a higher proportion of cases open for a year or more.

Trial ineffectiveness remained broadly constant at both the magistrates’ courts and the Crown Court. The ineffective rate at both types of court has remained broadly constant since the start of 2024.

Timeliness from charge to completion worsened at both the magistrates’ courts and the Crown Court. At the Crown Court, timeliness returned to levels seen in early 2024 whereas for the magistrates’ courts, timeliness reached a post-COVID series peak.

Changes to note

Additional table showing jury trial volumes and proportions

Following the recent announcement of planned reforms to the criminal court system in response to part one of the Independent Review of Criminal Courts^{[footnote 1]}, we have included an additional table (Table_J1) in this release to bring together already published data relating to jury trial volumes and proportions.

The data used in this table are already published in the Crown Court waiting time table (C6), plea table (C3), Single Justice Procedure timeliness table (T1) and magistrates’ courts timeliness tables (T3). This table brings this information into one place to improve accessibility and transparency.

Magistrates’ courts data developments:

1. Addition of Single Justice Procedure (SJP) filter to magistrates’ courts pivot tools

From this release onwards we have added a filter to the magistrates’ courts receipts, disposals and open caseload tool which identifies whether a case is part of the Single Justice procedure. This filter has also been added to the magistrates’ courts timeliness tool.

The addition of these filters replaces the additional tables we published in the March 2025 release and provides users with a more flexible way of viewing data on the Single Justice Procedure, including geographical breakdowns^{[footnote 2]}.

2. Expanded magistrates’ courts timeliness tool – statistics in development

We have expanded the magistrates’ courts timeliness tool to include statistics in development showing new breakdowns^{[footnote 3]} by offence group and whether the defendant was dealt with via the Single Justice Procedure. Previously, the tool only included the metric offence to completion (mean) but these changes bring the tool in line with the published tool for the Crown Court, showing broader timeliness trends in the magistrates’ courts. Each of these fields are available by region, LCJB, whether the case is Single Justice Procedure, case type and offence group.

We will continue to develop this series and seek to build on the measures published here in future releases. We welcome feedback on this expanded series and will consider further how the detail provided meets user needs.

3. One Magistrates project

Following the improvements to data quality and coherence seen as a result of the One Crown project, alongside HMCTS we have commenced the One Magistrates project. This project will review all data we publish concerning the magistrates’ courts and aims to improve quality, coherence and value for users. There is the potential for the magistrates’ courts data series to change as the project develops – we will continue to consult users and outline key areas of change in future releases on this bulletin.

Crown Court data developments:

1. Addition of remand status filter to the Waiting and Hearing times in the Crown Court Tool

For the Waiting and Hearing times in the Crown Court Tool we are providing more data on the remand status of all defendants, expanding this from including only “For trial” defendants to cover all those dealt with at the Crown Court.

2. One Crown project

We have carried out two consultations regarding the One Crown project and the resultant changes to the Crown Court data. We received no external concerns at the definitional changes or impacts on published series. The One Crown project has concluded and we are not expecting any further changes to the published measures as part of this work.

Work is ongoing to consider the reintroduction of data regarding Representation Status and Grounds for Sending and further updates concerning proposed changes to annual measures will be communicated in due course.

1. Criminal cases in the magistrates’ courts

---

Open caseload at the magistrates’ courts increased on the previous year and remains at a series high

Receipts at the magistrates’ courts decreased by 3% on the previous year and disposals remained at a similar level. Disposals remained below receipts and this led to a 17% increase in the open caseload relative to the previous year.

---

Figure 1: Magistrates’ courts caseload, Q1 2019 – Q3 2025 (Source: Table M1)

Magistrates’ courts caseload

Receipts and disposals have both tended to rise from series lows in Q2 2020 when the initial measures were put in place to manage the immediate risks of the COVID-19 pandemic in courts^{[footnote 4][footnote 5][footnote 6]}. Disposal levels remain slightly below those seen in 2019 and receipts have dipped from a high at the start of the year.

• There were 362,055 cases received into the magistrates’ courts in Q3 2025. This is down 3% on both the previous year (371,514) and previous quarter (374,626). The decrease in receipts was driven by a fall in Summary Non-Motoring receipts (down 18%), with all other case types^{[footnote 7]} seeing an increase in volume.

• There were 343,168 disposals at the magistrates’ court in Q3 2025, broadly in line with the volumes seen in the previous year but down 4% on the previous quarter.

• At the end of September 2025 there was a series peak of 373,040 open cases at the magistrates’ courts. This represents a 5% increase on the previous quarter (354,222) and a 17% increase on the previous year (319,743). The increase was seen across case types, except Summary Non-Motoring and Breaches, which saw a 5% and 3% decrease respectively.

• This release is the first to split out Single Justice Procedure (SJP) cases in the magistrates’ court receipts, disposals and open caseload tool. Since that start of 2023, SJP cases have constituted around 50% of the open magistrates’ courts caseload (51% in the latest quarter). Quarterly receipts continue to exceed disposals by over 10,000 cases, which has led to an increase in the open caseload by 17% on the previous year.

Trial efficiency at magistrates’ courts

Trial efficiency measures at the magistrates’ courts worsened slightly on the previous quarter – 38% were effective, 39% cracked and 23% ineffective (down from 40% effective, 39% cracked and 22% ineffective^{[footnote 8]}).

Following a jump up from 17% to 23% across 2020 and 2021, the ineffective trial rate has stabilised at this higher rate (between 22% and 23%).

The largest contributing reasons this quarter were overlisting (22%), defendant absence (12%), the defence not being ready (10%) and other cases overrunning (10%).

Figure 2: Magistrates’ courts listed trials and ineffective trial rate (%), Q1 2014 – Q3 2025 (Source: Table M2)

2. Criminal cases in the Crown Court

---

Continued increase in the open caseload at the Crown Court

Both receipts and disposals remained at similar levels as the previous quarter but fell by 4% and 2% respectively on the previous year. The open caseload continued to increase, rising by 9% on the previous year to a series peak of 79,619.

---

Crown Court caseload

Increased throughput and a continued increase in demand from the magistrates’ courts saw receipts rise to a quarterly series peak of 31,740 in Q3 2024. High demand has persisted across both 2024 and 2025 to date, with receipts exceeding pre-COVID levels.

There were 30,358 cases received into the Crown Court in Q3 2025, marginally below the figure of 30,480 from the previous quarter.

Figure 3: Crown Court caseload, Q1 2016 – Q3 2025 (Source: Table C1)

• The decrease in receipts at the Crown Court in the last year was largely due to falls in “committed for sentence” (a 14% decrease on the previous year) with increases seen in “For trial (Indictable only)” (5%) and appeals cases (3%).

• Violence against the person offences continue to be the largest contributing offence group with 8,600 receipts in the period accounting for 28% of all cases received in the quarter. However, the volume of receipts decreased by 7% on the previous year.

• There were notable increases in the volume of receipts for sexual offences (15%), fraud (9%) and robbery (5%) compared to the previous year. When looking specifically at rape offences, the number of receipts reached a series peak of 1,372 representing a 20% increase on the previous year.

There were 28,846 cases disposed of at the Crown Court in Q3 2025. The volume remains broadly in line with those seen since the start of 2024 but well above levels seen in Q4 2019 (23,132).

• The largest proportionate increase in disposals was seen in trial^{[footnote 9]} cases which increased by 5% on the previous year. In contrast, committed for sentence cases decreased by 11% and appeals by 7% on the previous year.

• Violence against the person disposals increased by 4% and reached a series high of 8,233. Sexual offence disposals increased 2% on the previous year and maintained levels last seen in 2016.

The open caseload reflects the workload in the courts at a given time. It will never be zero, as it reflects the volume of cases that are active in the courts at a particular point, including those recently received, those close to being disposed, those which are complex and take time to complete and those that may be delayed.  It is useful to consider timeliness and volumes of receipts and disposals alongside the open caseload for important context.

The open caseload fell between 2016 and 2019, and at the end of 2019 it stood at 38,105.

At the end of September 2025 there were 79,619 open cases at the Crown Court, this is a series high and continues increases seen since Q1 2023. This represents an increase of 2% on the previous quarter (78,096 cases) and 9% on the previous year (72,849 cases).

• The largest proportionate increases in the open caseload compared to the previous year were seen for sexual offences (23%) and robbery (13%) cases.

• The increases in open caseload volumes can be seen for all regions compared to the previous quarter. London reported the largest open caseload at 18,761 – this represents an increase of 4% on the previous quarter (18,103) and 24% on the previous year (15,088).

Age of open caseload

The age of an open case is calculated from the date of receipt at Crown Court to the end of the reporting period.

The median age of an open case increased sharply from around 90 days in 2019 to a series peak of 190 days in 2021 during the pandemic. After the pandemic, the median decreased to 153 days in 2024 with some fluctuation between quarters.

At the end of September 2025, the median age of an open case was 175 days, this represents a 5% increase on the previous quarter (167 days) and a 14% increase on the previous year (154 days).

At the end of September 2025 there were 20,155 cases that had been open for a year or more, accounting for 27% of all cases. This volume is 25% higher than the previous year and it is the first time the number of cases open for a year or more has exceeded 20,000.

The offence groups with the highest proportion of cases open for a year or more were fraud (39%), sexual offences (31%) and miscellaneous crimes against society (29%). When looking at violence against the person offences, 26% were open for a year or more.

Figure 4: Average age of open cases at the Crown Court, Q1 2016 – Q3 2025 (Source: Table O1)

Figure 5: Proportion of open cases at the Crown Court by grouped age, Q1 2016 – Q3 2025 (Source: Table O3)

Trial effectiveness at Crown Court

There were 7,703 trials listed to start in Q3 2025 – a decrease of 2% on the same quarter in the previous year. The proportion of trials which commenced as planned (effective) decreased slightly from 45% to 44%. This has been fairly consistent since the start of 2023 (between 43% and 46%) but remains below rates seen pre-COVID which average around 50%.

The percentage of trials that are not required (cracked) remained stable at 31% and the percentage which are rescheduled (ineffective) increased from 23% to 25% in the last quarter, returning to the level seen in 2024. There has been a step-change in the ineffective trial rate on levels seen prior to 2020 (ranging around 13-19%) with rates stabilising between 23% and 26% since the start of 2024, slightly below the rates seen soon after COVID in 2023 (26% to 28%).

Figure 6: Crown Court listed trials and ineffective trial rate (%), Q1 2016 – Q3 2025 (Source: Table C2)

Guilty plea rate

The guilty plea rate is the number of defendants in for trial cases which have been disposed who entered a guilty plea to all counts as a proportion of all those who entered a plea. The guilty plea rate increased sharply following the immediate COVID response and the suspension of jury trials and more recently it has fallen back to pre-COVID levels.

In Q3 2025 there were 11,843 defendants dealt with following a guilty plea – this represents a guilty plea rate of 62% and is in line with levels seen since the start of 2023 (ranging from 60% to 62%).

There were 3,798 defendants dealt with via a jury trial following a not guilty plea, accounting for 19% of all defendants entering a plea and is broadly in line with levels seen since 2022 (18% - 22%).

There were 3,459 defendants whose case was dropped, accounting for 17% of defendants with a known plea.

Average waiting time at the Crown Court

Waiting time is the duration between case receipt and first main hearing. The waiting time estimates are a ‘lagged’, backwards looking measure counted at the point of disposal. The median waiting time for defendants dealt with was 10.0 weeks in Q3 2025. This has increased by 8% on the previous year (9.3 weeks) but is similar to the two previous quarters. This is also well above pre-COVID levels (7.7 weeks in Q4 2019).

For those entering a not guilty plea, the median waiting time was 45.9 weeks. This represented a 3% increase on the previous quarter and a 4% increase on the previous year. This was considerably higher than the time seen immediately pre-COVID, when the median waiting time stood at around 27 weeks.

New breakdowns for this release show that as of September 2025, the median waiting time across case types for those remanded into custody was 10.1 weeks compared to 12.6 weeks for those remanded on bail. 10.1 weeks represented a 9% increase on the previous year.

Average hearing time at the Crown Court

Hearing time estimates are a ‘lagged’ backwards looking measure for completed cases, counted at point of disposal. Both median and mean hearing time for all cases completed at the Crown Court have remained stable over the past year (1.0 hours and 3.1 hours respectively).

The mean increases to 16.1 hours for trial cases where a not guilty plea was entered – this is unchanged on the previous year.

New breakdowns for this release show that in Q3 2025, the mean hearing time across case types for those remanded in custody was 4.1 hours compared to 2.2 hours for those remanded on bail, with no change compared to the previous year.

3. Timeliness

---

Time taken from charge to completion has increased in both the magistrates’ courts and the Crown Court

At the magistrates’ courts, the median time from charge to completion increased by 10 days (23%) from 44 to 54 days. This is also well above pre-COVID levels, which stood around 35 days in 2019.

At the Crown Court this increased by 9 days (5%) on the previous year, rising from 170 to 179 days. Timeliness estimates remain well above pre-COVID levels, which were around 140 days.

---

The timeliness measures are based on defendants whose cases have completed and as such are ‘backwards’ looking measures of timeliness between offence and completion at the relevant criminal court jurisdiction.

Magistrates’ courts timeliness

Timeliness at the magistrates’ courts measures the time from an offence being committed through key stages of the criminal justice system including charge or laying of the information, first listing and the subsequent completion of a defendant’s case at the magistrates’ court.

At the magistrates’ courts, timeliness from offence to completion increased by 3% over the previous year from 185 to 191 days, with the level returning to that seen immediately after the pandemic at the start of 2022.

Timeliness from charge to completion increased by 10 days (23%) from 44 to 54 days. This is well above pre-COVID levels, which stood around 35 days in 2019. 

Figure 7: Average number of days from offence to completion for defendants dealt with at the magistrates’ courts by stage, Q1 2014 – Q3 2025 (Source: Table T3)

Single Justice Procedure timeliness

In the latest quarter there were 196,456 defendants dealt with at the magistrates’ courts via the Single Justice Procedure (SJP). This represents 62% of all defendants dealt with at the magistrates’ courts (excluding breaches and defendants sent to the Crown Court) and the proportion is unchanged from the previous year.

• The median duration from offence to completion for defendants dealt with via SJP in the quarter was 199 days, up 5% on the same period in the previous year (190 days). When looking at charge to completion, the median was 55 days, up 28% on the previous year (an increase of 10 days). For SJP cases, most of the time is pre-court as once cases reach the court, most are dealt with on the day (the median time spend at court is 0 days).

Non-Single Justice Procedure timeliness

Overall time from offence to completion decreased by 11% from 157 to 139 days over the last year.

• The median time spent ‘Pre-court’ decreased over the past year by 19% from 110 to 89 days. This was driven by decreases in both the time spent from offence to charge and charge to first listing.

• The median time spent ‘At court’ increased from 0 to 2 days. When looking at the mean, this showed an increase of 19% from 51 to 61 days.

Crown Court timeliness (“End-to-end”)

End-to-end timeliness measures the time from an offence being committed through key stages of the criminal justice system including charge, passage through the magistrates’ courts and subsequent completion of a defendant’s case at the Crown Court. The estimates are created by linking magistrates’ courts and Crown Court data outputs to create an ‘end-to-end’ defendant journey across key stages of the criminal justice system.

The median duration from offence to completion for defendants dealt with at the Crown Court increased by 6% over the last year, from 330 to 350 days. The current median is 14% below a series high of 406 days from Q1 2022 but remains above pre-COVID levels (254 days in Q4 2019).

Figure 8: Average number of days from offence to completion for defendants dealt with at the Crown Court, Q1 2014 – Q3 2025 (Source: Table T4)

The time from offence committed through to completion provides a useful estimate of the total time a victim of crime will have waited to reach a court outcome. The time from charge to completion provides an estimate of the time that criminal justice agencies have spent progressing a case through to reaching an outcome at court.

The median time from charge to completion for defendants dealt with at the Crown Court in Q3 2025 was 179 days. This has tended to fall back from peaks seen in 2021 (222 days in Q4) and has fluctuated between 170 and 180 days since Q3 2023. The latest estimate remains well above levels seen prior to 2020 (136 days in Q4 2019) and represents a 5% increase over the last year from 170 days in Q3 of 2024.

• In ‘for trial’ cases where a not guilty plea was entered, the median duration from charge to completion was 414 days – this is up 5% on the previous quarter (393 days) and 2% on the previous year (407 days). This has fallen from a series peaks seen in Q2 2023 (448 days).

4. Language interpreter and translation services

---

Completed language service requests rose to a series peak

There were 51,184 completed requests in Q3 2025, up 7% on the previous year.  The success rate stayed the same as the previous two quarters at 97%.

---

As well as the data included in this bulletin, the Cabinet Office also publish Key Performance Indicator (KPI) data on all central government contracts including those delivering the MOJ language interpreter and translation services. There are 12 KPIs covering four contract lots, with the same scope as the published official statistics. The Cabinet Office provide a quarterly snapshot of supplier performance against contract terms and more closely track operational delivery of the contract.

These KPIs are produced using similar underlying data sourced from contract providers but they serve a different purpose to the official statistics. The official statistics provide a broader view of the contracted service and provide longer-term and more granular breakdowns of trends in booking volumes, fulfilment, complaints and off-contract use. Both KPIs and official statistics can be used together to provide a coherent picture of performance under these contracts, albeit some of the measures will not be directly comparable.

Please see A Guide to language interpreter and translation services statistics for further information on the differences between the metrics published.

Key links:

MOJ Language Interpreter and Translation Service statistics (Tables L1-L3): Criminal court statistics- GOV.UK (see Tables document)

• L1 – Request fulfilment

• L2 – Complaints

• L3 – Off contract requests

MOJ Trial Effectiveness Tool: Criminal court statistics - GOV.UK (see Trial effectiveness at the criminal courts tool)

• Reason 29: Ineffective reason: No interpreter available

Cabinet Office KPI data: Key Performance Indicators (KPIs) for government’s most important contracts - GOV.UK

The Cabinet Office publish KPI data quarterly by financial year and it is available from 2020 Q1. To find data relating to interpreters and language services you can search for ‘Translation and Transcription’, ‘Language Services Lot 1’, ‘Language Services Lot 3’ and ‘Language Services Lot 4’ within the ‘Contract title and description’ column. Alternatively, you can search for the individual suppliers under the ‘Supplier’ column: ‘thebigword Group’, ‘Clarion Interpreting Ltd’ and ‘the Language Shop’.  

Completed service requests

The volume of completed service requests fell back from the peak seen in Q1 2025 (down 7% to 51,184) but remains above levels seen in the previous year (up 7%).

The proportion of requests that were unfulfilled has decreased from a peak of 8% a year ago to 3% in the most recent quarter. A spike was observed in Q2 and Q3 of 2024, with unfilled requests in these quarters roughly 2,000 higher than other quarters. These quarters were impacted by the June 2024 booking portal update, aimed at resolving responsiveness, which caused unexpected short-term issues. Although resolved quickly, these errors temporarily impacted fulfilment rates earlier in 2024.

The overall success rate in Q3 2025 remained the same as the previous two quarters at 97%.

The number of cancelled requests fell by 9% on the previous quarter from 13,234 to 12,090.

Figure 9: Number of completed language service requests and overall success rate, Q1 2014 – Q3 2025 (Source: Table L1)

Complaints and complaint rate

There were 232 complaints made in Q3 2025. This represents an increase of 39% on the previous quarter and a decrease of 6% on the same quarter from the previous year (248).

The overall complaint rate was 0.5% in the latest period and has remained below 1% since Q2 2020.

Ineffective trials due to interpreter availability

An ineffective trial is one that does not go ahead on the scheduled trial date, and a further listing is required. This can be due to action or inaction by one or more of the prosecution, the defence or the court.

Statistics regarding the volume of criminal court trials which are rescheduled on the planned start date due to interpreter availability are published as part of the trials efficiency tool covering both magistrates’ courts and the Crown Court. The trials data is collected as part of the quarterly trial efficiency measures and it is not directly connected to the source of interpreters data - as such the two sets of series are not directly comparable.

In Q3 2025, 230 trials were ineffective due to interpreter availability across both magistrates’ courts and the Crown Court. This is similar to the previous period (201) and continues to account for a relatively small volume of all listed trials (0.7%).

‘Off-contract’ requests

‘Off-contract’ requests are those which are procured outside of the contracted services where fulfilment cannot be achieved by the supplier.

MoJ have undertaken a review of the off-contract data collection methods. Improvements to the collection have resulted in a more robust but higher baseline of activity than previously reported. This is considered a necessary change that improves data integrity and more accurately reflects the off-contract request volumes.

The development in this data series reflects the MoJ’s commitment to continuous improvement and best practice – ensuring more reliable insights into booking activity in the future. The improved data is available from Q2 2024 currently and, if possible, we will seek to revise the back series in a future publication to reflect the improvements.

There were 2,778 ‘off-contract’ requests in Q3 2025, this represents a decrease of 10% on the previous quarter (3,082) and a decrease of 31% on the same quarter from the previous year (4,029).

Further information on criminal court data

The data presented in this publication are from live administrative databases. Therefore, previously published data is liable to be updated in the latest bulletin, following any further data cleaning or the incorporation of additional cases not available in the extracts used to produce previous bulletins.

Accompanying files

As well as the bulletin, the following products are published as part of this release:

• Technical guides providing background information and standalone quality guide.

• A set of overview tables, covering each section of this bulletin.

• Pivot tools and underlying data which feature further breakdowns of published data.

Accredited official statistics status

Accredited Official Statistics are called National Statistics in the Statistics and Registration Service Act 2007. These Accredited Official Statistics were independently reviewed by the Office for Statistics Regulation (OSR) in March 2025^{[footnote 10]}. They comply with the standards of trustworthiness, quality and value in the Code of Practice for Statistics and should be labelled as accredited official statistics.

It is the Ministry of Justice’s responsibility to maintain compliance with the standards expected for Accredited Official Statistics. If we become concerned about whether these statistics are still meeting the appropriate standards, we will discuss any concerns with the Authority promptly. Accredited Official Statistics status can be removed at any point when the highest standards are not maintained and reinstated when standards are restored.

Official statistics in development status

Official statistics in development are official statistics that are undergoing a development; they may be new or existing statistics, and will be tested with users, in line with the standards of trustworthiness, quality, and value in the Code of Practice for Statistics. Until September 2023, they were called ‘experimental statistics’. Official statistics in development are developed under the guidance of the Head of Profession for Statistics (HoP). The goal is to develop statistics that can, in due course, be produced to the standards of the Code^{[footnote 11]}.

Contact

Press enquiries should be directed to the Ministry of Justice press office:

Tel: 0203 334 3536

Website: Media Enquiries

Other enquiries and feedback about these statistics should be directed to:

Email: criminal_court_sta@justice.gov.uk

Next update: 26th March 2026

URL: https://www.gov.uk/government/collections/criminal-court-statistics

© Crown copyright

Produced by the Ministry of Justice

Alternative formats are available on request from criminal_court_sta@justice.gov.uk

1. Deputy Prime Minister to Announce ‘Swift and Fair Justice’ - GOV.UK ↩

2. Data previously published on the Single Justice procedure: https://assets.publishing.service.gov.uk/media/685a9d8872588f4188620743/SJP_tables.ods ↩

3. New breakdowns show mean and median time from offence to charge, charge to completion, Pre-Court (charge to first listing) and At court (first listing to completion). ↩

4. https://www.judiciary.uk/guidance-and-resources/coronavirus-covid-19-message-from-the-lord-chief-justice-to-judges-in-the-civil-and-family-courts/ ↩

5. Review of court arrangements due to COVID-19, message from the Lord Chief Justice - Courts and Tribunals Judiciary ↩

6. https://www.gov.uk/government/news/more-face-to-face-hearings-as-courts-reopen ↩

7. Other case types consist of Triable-either-way, Indictable only, Summary Motoring and Breaches. ↩

8. Due to rounding, percentages may not sum to 100%. ↩

9. Includes both Indictable only and Triable-either-way cases. ↩

10. https://osr.statisticsauthority.gov.uk/publication/review-of-the-quality-of-criminal-court-statistics-for-england-and-wales/ ↩

11. https://code.statisticsauthority.gov.uk/ ↩