Crown Court question

[twoteachers]

My Dad has been charged with sexual assault and with assault occasioning actual bodily harm (against me ).

The Magistrates have remanded him in custody (something to do with insufficient sentencing power) and the case is going to a Crown Court.

How long is it going to take? Weeks or months? The Family Liaison Officer spoke to me when I was at school and frankly I was in too much of daze to take it all in

There is a lot more in the relationships section (Toxix Dad thread) but I thought experts here might help more just on this.

Oh what an awful situation for you, I have no answers to your questions but just bumping your question

The case will have been referred to Crown Court because it is too serious an offence for Magistrates to hear. They can only sentence for upto 6 months and a conviction for this type of offence would merit a far more severe sentence.

It will probably be a few weeks before the case comes to trial and how long the trial lasts will depend on whether he pleads guilty and if not, how many witnesses there are.

You need to speak to your FLO, if they don't know the answers they could find out for you. I haven't read your other threads, but I hope this is helpful to you.

sorry your having to go through this.

For me it was about 4mths when my case (I was carjacked) went to crown court.

And the person plead guilty on the day so I didn't have to go into court.

The first hearing in the Crown Court will be approximately 4 weeks from the day when it was sent from the magistrates.

On that day your dad will appear in court and he will plead guilty or not guilty. Obviously if he pleads not guilty there will be a trial and you and other people will have to give evidence.

When the case is listed for trial will depend on various factors, for example how busy the particular Crown court is at the moment. Some have a back-log, some not so much. If your dad is likely to remain in custody until the trial then there will be a need to get him tried asap, because there are rules about how long you can keep someone locked up prior to trial.

This case might be done in 4 months or 8 months, you won't have an idea until the Plea & Case Management hearing - the first hearing in the Crown court. Even then, sometimes there are delays, which could put the trial back further.

When the court fixes the case for trial it is important that they are aware of any unavailability for you - so they don't fix it when you can't come due to holidays/exams/medical needs etc. Your FLO should be able to get this info to the court, via the CPS.

I should say that you are not expected to go to the first hearing but that your FLO should liase with the CPS before that hearing, to let them know when you are able to come to court to be a witness and then after that hearing, to let you know when the trial is.