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CRIMINAL LAW DEPARTMENT
Information Sheet 11
Crown Court Warned Lists |
Crown Courts arrange their work to make the best use of court
time. Because they do not always know how long a particular
case is going to take, it is necessary for them to have a
list of cases which are “warned” for hearing over
a period of one or more weeks. This means that any of these
cases could be called on at short notice at any time during
this period.
The court only inform us by telephone the afternoon before
they list a warned case. We will do our best to inform you
when the court are listing your case, but ultimately it is
your own obligation to find out when your case is listed.
The Crown Court will write and tell us when they place your
case in a warned list, and we will then write to you confirming
this.
You must then telephone this office at about 4.00 pm every
afternoon during the period when your case is warned, to establish
whether it has been listed for the next day. This is very
important, since if you fail to appear at court when required
to do so, you will be committing a separate offence under
the Bail Act for which you could be separately punished, and
a warrant will issued for your arrest.
Please note that we do make a record of each call we receive.
If you do not keep in regular contact with us when your case
is warned, we are obliged to tell the court that you are not
co-operating with the procedure. If this happens, the court
will then call your case on for a hearing to find out why
you are not keeping in touch with us.
Because of the erratic nature of the warned list system, it
is not always possible for the barrister we instruct on your
behalf to be available when the case is eventually listed.
We do understand that this can be a little worrying for you,
but would assure you that this is quite normal. Barristers
are used to dealing with cases in this way, and are well able
to acquaint themselves with the details of a case at short
notice in such situations. We use a number of barristers on
a regular basis, so if the original barrister we have instructed
is not available, we will instruct another barrister from
the same Chambers in his place. We would assure you that any
barrister who represents you will be fully briefed about your
case.
Please telephone us if you require details of the Crown Court’s
location or have any queries about your case.
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