HMCTS Interpreting Reports
A mass court observation project which sat in on more than 1,100 hearings has reported that more than a fifth of hearings (230) involved a defendant for whom English was not a first language. An interpreter was not provided in 104 of those cases. Defendants who needed interpreters were ‘some of the worst served by the court’, the report said.
The 39-year-old appeared via video link from HMP Berwyn, near Wrexham, alongside an Albanian-speaking prisoner who had volunteered to help him understand what the judge was about to tell him.
Craigavon Magistrates Court erupted in laughter on Friday when the interpreter for a defendant referred to District Judge Bernie Kelly as ‘Your Majesty’.
A defendant’s pleas to allegations of child rape could not be taken – as there were only two interpreters in the UK able to speak his native tongue and neither were free to attend Oxford Crown Court.
