Courts short
WITH the new Police-approved interpreters and translators (PAIT) list being extended to include sign language interpreters this month, questions are being asked about why the courts service can't take similar steps to ensure the quality of interpreting in court proceedings.
PAIT has been developed by Leicester Police, whose chief constable Simon Cole is the National Police Chiefs' Council (NPCC) lead on languages. Since its launch in April, it has been widely adopted by other forces for foreign language work, such as supporting interviews with suspects, victims or witnesses.
The Leicester team said they had encountered claims that agencies sent poorly qualified interpreters to police assignments, and that interpreters who had been disciplined by one agency would turn up working for another. The new system involves stringent checks on experience, qualifications and vetting; and the NPCC says all the agencies with current contracts to supply interpreters to police forces have agreed to abide by it.
During the second reading of the Police, Crime, Sentencing and Courts Bill in the Lords last month, Baroness Coussins put in a plea for an amendment setting a similar minimum standard for interpreters' qualifications in the courts, following many examples "when an unqualified, underqualified or inexperienced interpreter causes confusion rather than clarity, often leading to costly re-hearings" (Eyes passim).
If agencies now have to send their best people to police jobs, the interpreters available for court work may become even less well
qualified. Written questions from the baroness earlier this year revealed that 169 interpreters have been removed from court work since 2019 following spot checks. No statistics were provided on how many cases each of those interpreters had worked on before problems were spotted.
At Ipswich crown court last month, Judge David Pugh grumbled that interpreters failing to arrive for cases "happens time and time again", after having to delay a hearing in a grievous bodily harm case when a Russian interpreter didn't show up.
Copyright: Private Eye, N1558 15th - 28th October 2021, page 40.
