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The Sunday Express can reveal that last week a 17-year-old girl – who claims she was sexually abused at the age of 12 – told lawyers she no longer had the strength to take part in the prosecution of her alleged abuser after her trial was once again delayed for six months because there was no available judge. The girl, described as “vulnerable” and from “troubled domestic circumstances”, was one of four who told police in 2020 they had been sexually abused by the same individual over the previous three years. Their ages ranged from 12 to 15 when the alleged offences began.

A police investigation resulted in a suspect being charged and a trial date was set for October in the following year. Already aware of the pressure this delay would cause, police liaison officers worked hard to reassure the girls to stay the course.

When October came, however, they were told that the allocated five-day time slot would not be sufficient, and the case was postponed again -this time by nine months – to last week as a six-day fixture.

With frustration and anxiety rising as their lives and schooling continued to be overshadowed by the impending ordeal,  police specialists once again worked hard to keep the girls supportive of the prosecution, court officials say.

Last week, more than two years after they first reported the allegation to police, and five years after their sexual abuse began, the girls once again attended Nottingham Crown Court to face their abuser  – only to be told no judge was available to sit for the second week of the trial. It was postponed once more – until March next year,

“There was no other judge in that large court centre who could take it. We could not be squeezed in elsewhere. It couldn’t start later in the week. It couldn’t start the following week.

The court could not accommodate it at all”, said a barrister familiar with the case.

It was the final straw for the desperate 17-year-old complainant, who told her barrister: “I can’t go on. This has ruined my GCSEs. It has ruined my AS levels. I cannot now let it ruin my A levels.”

It was not known whether she would change her mind, or even if the other three girls would follow suit. Sadly, this case is no exception.

“I’m aware of this case, and it’s not in the least surprising,” said Michelle Heeley QC, who leads the Midland Circuit of barristers, courts and judges.

“In one of my own cases from this week, the rape allegation took place in February 2018 and the first available court date for a five-day case was September 2020. That ended in a hung jury and the retrial was only listed for last Monday, two years later. Two weeks ago the claimant decided she had to get on with her life and the case was dropped.”

According to official figures, the average time it takes for a rape trial to come to court from the moment of arrest is now four-and-a half years (1,556 days) compared to three years (1,261 days) in 2014. Yet those seven year have seen the number of reported rape allegations which go to trial drop from 15 percent to just 1.3pc.

“Everyone is suffering. of good character are waiting years for a trial, and so are complainants who are waiting years to face the accused,” added Miss Heeley.

“Delay is dangerous. If, after four years, a claimant fails to remember a detail during cross-examination, the defence can say that this is because the offence didn’t happen. It affects defendants too. There are no winners here.”

While the Covid pandemic had a drastic impact on backlogs, the current crisis began in 2018 with a government decision to cut sitting court days  as part of a money-saving move, she said.

By December that year, the trials backlog had risen by 25 percent compared with 15 months earlier.

This was compounded in 2019 by a decision to cut Crown Prosecution Service funding by 15 percent, which has led to a 25 percent drop in the number of specially-trained  Rape and Serious Sexual Offences (Rasso) prosecutors.

The exodus of barristers also means fewer available full-time judges , while barristers who work as part-time judges are so busy with their own cases that they cannot fill the gaps.

The sexual offences trial backlog is worst in the heavily-populated south east, where it has risen threefold from 456 in March 2019 to 1,444 by March 2022, This included a pre-pandemic increase of 62 percent by March 2020, figures show.

Despite government claims that courts were “fully open”, it increased by a further 13 percent over the last year.

Jo Sidhu QC, chair of the Criminal Bar Association, said:”No rape complainants should be subjected to intolerable levels of delay at every stage of a case.

“The current meltdown is the direct result of a deliberate policy of under-funding by Government and its refusal to take the urgent action needed in order to reverse the exodus of our country’s prosecution and defence barristers, which has also led to there being insufficient numbers of part-time judges to help us get through the unprecedented backlog that is paralysing our courts.”

Last night the MoJ blamed industrial action by barristers for the adjournment at Nottingham Crown Court, though this was fiercely denied by those connected to the case, who pointed out that, because defence counsel was directly employed by a solicitor’s firm, they were not subject to strike action.

An Moj spokesman added: “our actions have already brought the pandemic-induced backlog down by 2,000 cases in a year”, citing a half-a-billion-pound investment to “speed up trials.”

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