Court date and or sentence

[namechangertoday098]

Named changed for this post.

My Bil was charged with conspiracy to supply class A/b drugs and has been on remand for nearly 3 years. First offence. He won't allow any visitors or give any information. He says he's too ashamed. His mum is very worried for him.

Is it possible to find out when his court date is or if he has been given a sentence already.

His family are completely in the dark . I've tried googling but the only thing I can find is details of his arrest.

Thank you.

3 years seems excessive for remand.
Use the find a prisoner service and write to him.

We do write to him and send cash but he won't give any details.

He could have already been sentenced we just don't know.

His mum is elderly and she's scared she won't see him again. It's such a mess.

Hmm, it's possible he's been on remand for 3yrs, but it's fairly unlikely due to Custody Time Limits. CTL mean cases have to be brought before the court expeditiously and 3yrs would absolutely not be acceptable to the court. Any competent solicitor and barrister working for your brother will be on this like a rat up a drain pipe. Even with the additional delays due to Covid, the court would not generally accept 3yrs while he waited on remand for a trial.

Even if he's unrepresented, the court will manage CTL themselves.

https://www.cps.gov.uk/legal-guidance/custody-time-limits#:~:text=Custody%20Time%20Limits%20(CTL)%20safeguard,to%20trial%20diligently%20and%20expeditiously.

Thank you both for replying.

He's not been on remand for 3 years. There's a custody time limit for remand cases of 6 months. This means his trial has to be heard within 6 months of him first being remanded to custody. He's been sentenced but just not told you.

Thank you. Is there a way to find out what the sentence was. He was arrested in July 2020.

Court hearings are held in public so I would imagine there's a way to find out through the court. Do you know which it would have been? It definitely would have been Crown Court for that offence and particularly if he's still in custody 3 years later, he's likely had a sentence of 6 years plus as he'd be auto-released at the half way stage. Have you tried googling him? He could have been in the local press and you just missed it.

I've googled but can only find details of his arrest. Which confirms his name and what he was charged with. Nothing about sentence. I'll look at our local crown court and see if I can find anything. Appreciate the responses.

If you know which court it would have been heard at, (most likely the crown court that covers the town where the offence happened) and have his full name, address and DOB then the court should tell you the outcome of the case. You’ll need to email listings. They might resist telling you but this is public information and should be available to anyone who asks for it.

Unfortunately there is no publicly available register of court outcomes.

There’s an outside chance that the case hasn’t been heard yet (we have three year old drug conspiracy cases waiting to be heard at our crown court, but the defendants are not on remand) but it’s very unlikely.

If you can find details of his arrest online, were they in the local paper? I’m a journalist and quite often get relatives asking me to find out court outcomes for them, which I’m usually happy to help with. The original journalist who wrote the story about the charges may be able to help you.

I ring crown court a lot for results and they never once ask me to verify my identity. As a PP says listings should tell you. They might ask for a case reference and huff and puff when you say you've not got one but they can search on name.

Thank you. I'll call the courts this week.