28 July 2014 by Catherine Baksi
Defence told to
trawl Chinatown for interpreter
A
Crown court judge asked a defence barrister to trawl the Chinese restaurants of
Cardiff to find an interpreter after the company contracted to provide
translators failed to do so on two occasions.
The
Gazette has learned that Liu Sun was taken to Cardiff Crown Court on 16
July after being arrested on a warrant in relation to offences of importing
prohibited goods. She denies the charges.
His
Honour Judge Burr adjourned the case until the following day as no Mandarin
interpreter had been provided by Capita.
When
the case returned to court on 17 July there was still no interpreter, prompting
the judge to make the request, which the defence barrister declined to carry
out.
On
the third occasion the defendant was brought to court, an interpreter was
provided.
A
similar problem had occurred at the same court on 15 July when the case of
another Chinese defendant, Liu Guiying, had to be adjourned.
Last
week the Ministry of Justice published the latest quarterly statistics on the
court interpreter contract, which showed that for the first three months of
2014 the number of fulfilled requests rose, although the figure remains below
the 98% contractual commitment.
Of
45,100 requests made by courts and tribunals, Capita provided an interpreter in
94.5% of cases, suggesting that 2,480 cases were potentially disrupted due to
the lack of an interpreter.
In
relation to the first case, a spokeswoman for Capita said the company ‘does not
have a record of unfulfilled bookings for Cardiff Crown Court that match the
name and dates provided’.
On
the second, she said Capita assigned an interpreter but that the court had made
the booking for the wrong time and the interpreter could not make the revised
time. She said Capita ‘continued to try and source an alternative interpreter
up until the day of the booking and kept the court fully informed
throughout’.
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