Brown Turner Ross

Anger over £600m in Unpaid Court Fines

At a time when £350m is being slashed off the Legal Aid Budget it is a scandal that the Government has failed to collect £600m ordered to be paid by way of

• Fines imposed in Crown & Magistrates Courts
• Prosecution Costs
• Compensation Orders
• Victim Surcharges
• Fixed Penalty Orders

The Government has rightly been accused of “economic illiteracy” given that the amount owing from the above has risen in the last year to £609.5m a rise of £21m in the last 12 months. This increase coincides with the decision to cut the number of Enforcement Officers employed to collect these sums by 21%.

You would be forgiven for wondering why more jobs have not been created to recover this money which after all people have been ordered to pay. Legal Aid lawyers and Public Service Unions have united in criticising the Department of Justice for what is clearly a public scandal and one that could be resolved by

• Saving the jobs of those currently employed to collect this money
• Creating new jobs to maximise collection
• Reviewing the collection procedures
• Diverting the money collected to avoid the legal Aid Cuts

While it is true to say that Magistrates Courts now try and insist on Fines being paid on the day they are imposed that is not always possible. People who will soon realise that no public funding is available for the legal services they urgently require will find it hard to understand why such colossal sums of money have not been collected.

Why not write to your MP and ask him to raise this issue with Department of Justice?