We did not need a pandemic to expose the frailties of our justice system; however, the devastating spread of COVID-19 has left our courts, prisons and wider access to justice community reeling. As of last week, there was a skeleton service of 160 courts open to the public; all jury trials have how now been cancelled; and business in the magistrates’, family and civil courts restricted to urgent work so that the court service can keep ‘the wheels of justice’ turning.
Just because the country is in ‘lockdown’ doesn’t mean that people’s emergency legal needs disappear. The domestic violence charity Refuge reported a 25% increase in calls to the National Domestic Abuse Helpline since lockdown began. One leading family lawyer reported that one of her team spent two-and-a-half hours waiting on the phone to the courts to get an update on two emergency applications for domestic abuse injunctions. ‘We had someone phoning from her toilet,’ the family lawyer Jenny Beck told the
