Almost 60,000 arrest warrants were issued for defendants who failed to appear in court in England and Wales last year, a nearly 50% increase since 2020, according to figures obtained by Channel 4's Dispatches programme. The data, which will be aired on Friday 29 May, reveals that more than 30,000 failure-to-appear warrants remain outstanding, leaving tens of thousands of charged criminals potentially at large.
Former justice secretary Alex Chalk KC described the situation as a 'horror show', attributing the crisis to the Covid pandemic, a barristers' strike, underfunding of courts, and a shortage of prison spaces. Chalk said he had warned then-Prime Minister Rishi Sunak of the impending crisis but was ignored, leading to a falling-out between the two.
More than 7,000 outstanding warrants date from before 2020, meaning suspects have been on the run for six or more years. Over a quarter relate to Category A offences, the most serious cases including rape, armed robbery, and manslaughter. In crown courts, which handle the gravest crimes, failure-to-appear warrants rose by 134%, from 6,808 in 2020 to 15,963 in 2024.
The documentary used open-source intelligence to track down five of the UK's most wanted criminals, including Ersin Mustafa, wanted for alleged insider trading, who claimed from North Cyprus that authorities had only emailed him. Another case involved Rashid Ali, who after killing Jack Ryan in a hit-and-run while on a student visa, fled to Pakistan and was sentenced in absentia, yet appeared to have returned to the UK unchallenged despite an outstanding warrant.
The crown court backlog stands at over 80,000 cases, more than double pre-pandemic levels, with some trials not expected to be heard until 2029 or 2030. The number of rape victims withdrawing from prosecutions has also more than doubled amid the delays, highlighting the broader strain on the criminal justice system.
