6 January 2017
FARCICAL! Afghan killer who came to UK and
beat police with a hammer has sentencing delayed... because translator went to
wrong town
An Afghan murderer who
attacked two police officers with a hammer after arriving in Britain could not
be punished yesterday – because his interpreter went to the wrong court.
Around £10,000 of
taxpayers’ money was wasted on a judge, barristers, three police officers and
court clerks for the sentencing of Jamshid Piruz.
An interpreter who could
speak his Dari language was booked for the hearing because the 34-year-old, who
beheaded a Dutch woman in 2007, has such poor English.
But the language expert
went to a court in a different town at the wrong time and went home without
telling anyone.
Judge Jeremy Gold QC
demanded a ‘full written explanation’ from the person responsible for informing
the court of the error. Piruz will now be sentenced at Hove Crown Court next
Friday.
The case exposes the
Ministry of Justice’s shambolic privatisation of legal translation services.
MPs and spending watchdogs say a catastrophic shortage of interpreters has made
courts rely on Google Translate, a basic and time-consuming online translation
service.
More than 2,600 court cases
have been adjourned in the past five years because of failures in the
interpreting service.
‘This illustrates perfectly
what a farce the criminal justice system is in the UK and how inefficient the
courts are,’ said Philip Davies, a Tory MP on the Commons justice committee.
‘Taxpayers’ money is being
completely squandered on nonsense like this. You really couldn’t make it up.
How hard can it be to make sure an interpreter turns up at the right court at
the right time?’
Lord Marks, the Liberal
Democrat justice spokesman, said: ‘It is utterly farcical that cases have to be
rescheduled because the interpreter does not turn up.
‘How can they not know what
day they are needed? I understand mistakes happen but this is just not on. Many
interpreters are dedicated professionals and a few just let everyone down.’
[…] About 10,000 foreign nationals are in UK
prisons, around 11 per cent of the total prison population, with many needing
interpreters at their numerous court hearings and appeals.
Courts across England used
to rely on local interpreters but in January 2012 ministers handed a monopoly
to Capita Translation and Interpreting.
It prompted a wave of
criticism from the National Register of Public Service Interpreters, which
previously provided courts with language experts.
MPs were told the company
had failed to send interpreters to up to a fifth of trials, sent people
speaking the wrong language, or used incompetent employees.
In October, the
heavily-criticised £168 million contract was handed to Leeds-based translation
service The Big Word.
A Ministry of Justice
spokesman said: ‘We introduced a new system for booking interpreters in 2012,
as the previous system was costly and inefficient.
‘Since this change
complaints remain low and so far we have saved £48 million for the taxpayer.’
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