High Court trial backlog nearly triples as serious cases pile up

Victims of rape, organised crime and other serious offences are still waiting years for verdicts as Scotland’s High Court backlog has nearly tripled since before Covid. By the end of March 2026, 1,002 High Court trials were waiting to go ahead, even as the wider criminal court backlog fell to 13,268 scheduled trials from a January 2022 peak of 43,606.

The problem is not the overall volume alone, but the kind of cases sitting at the front of the queue. Scotland’s High Courts deal with the most serious criminal allegations, including sex crimes and organised criminal activity, and Audit Scotland said the rise in these resource-intensive cases is now putting fresh pressure on the wider justice system. The watchdog said the pandemic-era backlog had been cut significantly through the courts recovery programme, but new solemn case levels have risen and remain much harder to clear than summary cases.

That strain is visible in the time it takes for cases to move from offence to verdict. In 2023/24, the median wait in the High Court was 1,015 days, nearly double the 520 days recorded in 2019/20. For non-historic sexual offence cases, the median wait rose to 1,034 days from 577 days. Sheriff solemn cases also slowed sharply, with the median rising to 565 days from 283 days over the same period. Even before cases reached court, delays were building: Crown Office time before High Court cases got to trial doubled from 245 days to 490 days, while sheriff solemn proceedings rose from 190 days to 302 days.

The Scottish Government’s Recover, Renew, Transform programme committed more than £100 million to tackling the court backlog, including remote jury centres and digital changes introduced during the pandemic recovery. But the Scottish Courts and Tribunals Service had previously expected High Court trials to return to a new baseline by March 2025, and later modelling warned that scheduled High Court load could keep rising and overwhelm capacity without more courts and investment.

Victim Support Scotland said thousands of people remained trapped in uncertainty while waiting for justice. Scottish Labour justice spokesperson Pauline McNeill said victims of serious crimes were facing “shamefully long waits” for justice. Neil Gray, appointed justice secretary in May 2026, said the latest Audit Scotland follow-up recognised progress made since the 2022 peak and pointed to targeted investment and collaboration. Paul McKinlay, the Scottish Courts and Tribunals Service executive director, welcomed the report but warned that pressures from serious criminal cases are expected to rise further over the next few years.