July 19, 2012
Man kept in cells for days as translator
unavailable
An asylum seeker who broke into an empty
house to find somewhere to sleep was kept in jail for two nights as police
tried to find an Arabic translator.
Last Wednesday the chairman of the
magistrates' bench at Folkestone joined the Crown prosecutor and the man's
defence solicitor in criticising the state of translation services.
[…]
His solicitor Sophie Reed, also being
funded under the Legal Aid programme, told the court her client had spent two
days in police cells because no one could be found who spoke the correct Arab
dialect.
"Yesterday I went to represent him and
there was no interpreter, so this is the third day this defendant has spent in
jail for something that police said they would have issued a fixed penalty
notice for, but couldn't because he was homeless," she said.
"This situation is a potential breach
of his human rights because we are not able to supply any information to the
arrested person. We are discriminating against him"
Prosecutor Mr Sweeney said: "A
translator not being available is a failure of the system, this was not the
fault of the police. We've all experienced difficulties under the new
system."
A shake-up of the costly translation
service saw the government agree a deal with Applied Language Solutions saving
£18million – almost a quarter of the annual spend – but many in the courts
believe it has led to delays.
Chairman of the bench Neil Hubbard agreed
that the two days Chammakh has spent in jail was sufficient punishment for the
criminal damage, and he made no cost or compensation order.
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