Defendants charged with arson, robbery and supplying drugs are being released from custody because their trials could not go ahead due to the strike by criminal barristers.

Refusing to extend the custody time limits for three defendants, sitting at Isleworth Crown Court the recorder of Kensington and Chelsea, Judge Martin Edmunds QC, said there is now 'systemic failure'.

The three separate trials were due to take place this week, but defence barristers notified the court they would not attend, due to the on-going dispute with the government over legal aid rates.

One defendant was charged with arson and religiously and racially aggravated harassment, and another was charged with blackmail, robbery, offering to supply drugs and assault on an emergency worker. Both had been held in custody for over seven months.

The third defendant, charged with conspiracy to supply cocaine and heroin has been in custody for over 16 months.

The law allows defendants awaiting crown court trials to be detained in custody before trial for up to 182 days (six months). That time can be extended if there is a 'good and sufficient' reason for the delay.

The judge stressed it was not for him to arbitrate the barristers' dispute, but he could take judicial notice of the criminal legal aid review commissioned by the government and carried out by Sir Christopher Bellamy.

Edmonds said the report, published eight and a half months ago, shows that the factors behind the current situation 'have been well known and are not sudden and unforeseen'.

He noted the urgency of the central recommendation in the report, to increase legal aid funding 'as a first step in nursing the system of criminal legal aid back to health after years of neglect'.

Edmonds said the barristers had made individual decisions not to attend court 'based on the rates of remuneration being inadequate', adding that 'those individual decisions cannot be separated from the fact that a large proportion of the possible advocates are not willing to do that work for the rates on offer'.

In addition, he said the strike action by the Criminal Bar Association began many months ago and that 'no informed observer would have seen it as unheralded'. 

The cases have been re-listed for trial in late November or early December 2022, and the defendants will be released on bail with conditions.

Edmonds’ decision follows a similar ruling in Bristol Crown Court where Judge Peter Blair QC identified 'chronic underfunding' of the system as the cause of the delays.

The two rulings will add put pressure on the new justice secretary Brandon Lewis to negotiate a swift end to the strike.

Giving evidence to MPs on the justice committee this week, Kirsty Brimelow QC, chair of the Criminal Bar Association, said: 'What you are going to see happening increasingly, is defendants in custody when their custody time limits finish they will be let out on bail. And there will be situations where you have people on the streets you would rather not have on the streets.'

The Gazette’s daily news update will not appear today, but will resume on Monday along with the weekly magazine.