There are 40,000 cases waiting to be heard in the Crown Court – twice as many as at the start of the pandemic – with around 8,000 suspects currently on remand, 1,600 of whom have been held for a year of more, The Times reports.

The Ministry of Justice established emergency “Nightingale courts” last summer to help deal with the backlog, initially committing £10 million and then a further £30 million in the autumn. There are now 60 across the jurisdiction.

However, James Mulholland QC, chair of the Criminal Bar Association (CBA), said: “Out of the 60 Nightingale courtrooms, barely 30 are for criminal work.”

He warned that at least twice as many were necessary to tackle the backlog, with the courts still well below pre-Covid levels of work.

A spokesperson for the MoJ said: “We have kept justice moving during the pandemic — Crown Court cases are beginning to fall and outstanding Magistrates cases have gone down by around 70,000 since last summer.

“More than half of our Nightingale courtrooms are used for criminal cases, with the remainder taking on civil, family and tribunal matters and freeing up capacity at nearby Crown Courts.”