AQO 9111/11-16

Mr Stewart Dickson
Alliance Party
East Antrim

Tabled Date: 05/11/2015
Answered On Date: 18/11/2015
Priority Written: No

Question:
To ask the Minister of Justice for an update on the outcome of the Speeding up Justice pilot in the Ards court division.

Answer:

The Indictable Cases Pilot launched in Ards on 2 January this year and will run until the end of December.

Currently, 128 cases are in the pilot, of which 96 are at court stages. Ten cases have concluded. Two of those cases took only 56 days from the date the incident was reported to police until sentencing, with an average of 97 days across the ten concluded cases.

This is a significant improvement on processing times for the same period in the same area last year, when the average time taken was 197 days.

I want to recognise the tremendous efforts of PSNI, PPS and FSNI in the pilot, and the leadership provided by the Lord Chief Justice and local judiciary.