‘Video vans’ and private companies operating video facilities in police stations have been proposed as a way of cutting ‘unnecessary’ journeys to court. The suggestions, from prisoner escort and custody services (PECS) contractor SERCO were made during a Justice for All event organised by the City of London last week.

They follow Sir Brian Leveson’s recommendations for improving efficiency, which include remote hearings and allowing vehicles to use bus lanes when they are transporting prisoners.

Graham Blair, director of growth and strategy for SERCO justice and immigration, told last week's event at the Old Bailey: ‘In our prisoner escort and court custody service we see high volume of prison capacity issues continuing to increase the underlying court journeys. The accused are facing longer transfers to and from trials and hearings and some would argue many of those should be deemed unnecessary anyway, many should not.’

He said the company had ideas for cutting unnecessary journeys. ‘For instance, let’s consider the police station to court moves. We do 6,000 of these every month. 70% of these cases on average are released at court.’ Remote hearings would remove the need for such journeys, he said. 

The second part of Sir Brian Leveson’s review found from November 2024 to October 2025, the PECS supplier for the north of England and Wales reported that approximately 62% of defendants remanded in police custody and delivered from police stations to court were released from court (on bail or otherwise).

PECS total journey volumes have increased year on year post pandemic, from around 430,000 between September 2020 and August 2021 to around 630,000 between September 2023 and August 2024, it said.

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Blair said: ‘Is it too radical to ask why can’t the PECS staff operate video facilities in the police station so that only those third who are remanded have to physically travel in the sweatbox?’ He said the benefits were ‘endless’ including ‘less vehicles required, less congestion, less pollution, less security risk, less costs, more PECS staff available to support the Crown court…less police officer time spent travelling to and waiting at the court’.

‘Of course there are always counter arguments, the PECS warrant card does not authorise the use of devolved powers in police stations. Well that may be true but we did provide precisely those services in certain police stations during covid lockdown when courts were closed.

‘We could provide and staff secure mobile facilities that could go to the police stations. We are driving a van there in the first place, anyway. We call these “video vans”, guaranteed connectivity delivering the appropriate experience both for the accused and the court. I am talking about the Royal arms, a uniformed dock officer – everything visible on the screen.’

He said the concept had been ‘proved’ in a pilot programme as part of SERCO’s response to the ‘initial’ 2015 Leveson efficiency review and was ‘enthusiastically endorsed by the senior presiding judge at the time’.

‘We can easily reignite these submissions as the response to Sir Brian’s further independent review,’ he added.

‘The video van concept can be expanded to include vulnerable witnesses. The pilot we did 10 years ago worked seamlessly [with] positive feedback from the court and the witness.’

Blair also suggested ‘large mobile fully managed courtrooms can tour regions much like a mobile library or a cancer screening facility reducing the backlog and offering access to justice’.