‘Technical difficulties’ caused the video link from Wandsworth prison to go down on Friday, causing disruption to some trials and other hearings across the capital.   

HM Prison Wandsworth, in South West London, is one of the largest and most overcrowded prisons in the UK. The Victorian building is a category B men’s prison, holding largely un-sentenced prisoners, those on remand awaiting trial, short-sentenced prisoners or those newly sentenced and awaiting transfer to another prison category.

It sends defendants to courts across London and the South East. In a note seen by the Gazette, a Ministry of Justice official notified court centres on Friday that the prison’s video link was ‘out of service due to technical difficulties’. 

The note said: ‘We had anticipated that the issue would be resolved today. Unfortunately, the engineers have been in today and have identified that it may not be possible to fix the system today.’ 

HM Prison Wandsworth

HM Prison Wandsworth sends defendants to courts across London and the South East

Source: Alamy

The added disruption comes at an unwelcome time, as the court service is battling to reduce the backlog of criminal cases, which in the crown courts has hit over 77,000. 

The official told courts: ‘While they are trying to implement a temporary fix with the hope that it may be working next week, there is a chance that problems may be ongoing into next week.’ 

Courts were therefore told to review court bookings for this week and either postpone trials, sentencing or other hearings for defendants who needed to be produced from prison or notify the prison service so that individuals could be present in court.    

The Ministry of Justice confirmed to the Gazette that the video conferencing centre at HMP Wandsworth was offline on 11 and 12 September and said that prison staff had worked with HMCTS teams at affected courts ‘to minimise disruption by rescheduling or planning in-person hearings’. 

A ministry spokesman said: ‘Last week there was some disruption to the video conferencing centre at HMP Wandsworth which impacted a number of hearings. Staff worked quickly to resolve the issue to minimise disruption.’