Government must listen to DPP advice

It is intolerable that criminal cases can, and do, languish for anything up to five years in the system, with consequently unacceptable delays for victims and witnesses which add to the eventual trauma of court appearances.

Apart altogether from the fact that the essential principle of justice delayed is justice denied, there is also the possibility of witness intimidation happening the longer a case is drawn out.

The extraordinary results of that occurring were only too dramatically highlighted in the very recent past, when a high-profile case collapsed for that very reason.