11th June
2012
Company to carry out investigation after
interpreter fails to turn up at court
An investigation
is being carried out by the company at the centre of a nationwide outcry over
its failure to provide interpreters after a Bradford Crown Court robbery trial
was abandoned because a translator failed to turn up.
But after a
spokesman for Applied Language Solutions (ALS) had pledged to find out what
went wrong, the contractor sent along a Czech interpreter for the Slovakian
defendant the day after the jury was discharged.
On Thursday, the
judge in the trial of Stanislav Jano aborted the trial and relisted it on
August 29 after his interpreter did not turn up for the second day.
A Czech interpreter
arrived after 2pm, but Recorder Christopher Storey QC and the trial barristers
agreed it was “contrary to the interests of justice” to continue. On Friday,
ALS sent another Czech translator for the case.
He was then
employed by the court to interpret for a co-accused Slovakian man who pleaded
guilty in January and must now wait until after the trial to be sentenced.
An ALS
spokesman, told the trial had been scuppered by lack of an interpreter, told
the Telegraph & Argus: “We have been made aware of a Bradford case
involving the non-supply of a Slovak interpreter for the second day of a trial
and are investigating the court’s concerns as a matter of urgency.”
Yunus Valli,
barrister for Jano, told the judge there had been similar difficulties with
interpreters not turning up for cases at Bradford and Leeds Crown Courts.
Local judges had
raised concerns about ALS and he believed there was “a channel of communication
to the Lord Chancellor’s Department on this subject.”
Mr Valli said
another trial at Bradford Crown Court had found itself without an interpreter
on Thursday morning.
Recorder Storey
said ALS must “furnish an explanation”. The question of a costs order would be
raised when the Jano trial started afresh.
Meanwhile,
campaign group Interpreters For Justice claims ALS failed to meet 3,833
requests for translators during the first three months of its Ministry of
Justice contract.
