Mulholland Demands Answers from Straw on Leeds Magistrates Court

3.20.00pm UTC (GMT +0000) Mon 17th Dec 2007

Following the revelation that hundreds of cases at Leeds Magistrates Court were not brought to court because warrants were not issued for the arrest of defendants when they failed to show up, and so received no punishment for the crimes they allegedly committed, and a written statement issued by Justice Minister Mr Straw to the House of Commons today, Leeds MP, Greg Mulholland, has written an urgent letter to Mr Straw.

Mr Mulholland asks Mr Straw in the letter to provide details of when Government Ministers, including himself, first became aware of these problems, how this was able to go on for so long, what is being done to track down those who were able to slip through the net, and whether the withdrawal of warrants was a systematic problem of institutional incompetence, or a seemingly deliberate attempt to drop cases for other reasons.

Commenting Greg said:

"This is an extremely serious matter which will shatter local confidence in the criminal justice system.

"It is clear that warrants were withdrawn when they should not have been and as a result hundreds of people charged with serious offences were not taken to court.

"We are either taking about systematic institutional incompetence, or a seemingly deliberate attempt to drop cases for other reasons.

"There are clearly a number of questions that the official investigation will have to answer, not least who took these decisions and on what basis, who knew about it and when, and what is going to be done to track those who have slipped through the net?"