LCCSA News, President's Report

President’s Bulletin 23rd February 2021

PUBLISHED February 23, 2021
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I write to share with you the latest updates on court recovery plans.

Wood Green & Hendon

Hendon will soon cease hearing magistrates’ court hearings linked to Willesden or Westminster and instead be used to hear Crown Court cases from Wood Green to help clear the backlog of cases. We will provide more details when they become available.  I understand the NGAP courts at Hendon will move back to Willesden from 1st March and the duty solicitor rotas have been amended accordingly.

Harrow’s spring update on listings and productions

Please ready an update from the resident judge on what to expect with case listed at Harrow in the coming months https://www.lccsa.org.uk/harrows-spring-update-on-listings-and-productions/

Lateral Flow Testing Pilot at Southwark

Please see a message from HMCTS London and a link to further information HERE

A lateral flow test centre will open as a “pilot” at Southwark Crown Court with effect from Monday the 15th of February 2021. I would be grateful if you could cascade this message and briefing to your colleagues and teams who are based at Southwark Crown Court.

 I just want to highlight that the operation of this test centre is primarily focussed on providing access to LFD testing for priority court users; e.g. staff in public facing roles, judiciary, security and jurors and also for our professional court users who will be accessing this courthouse during the pilot period (which we anticipate as 3-4 weeks initially).

 The LFD test centre will not operate as a public test centre and we are not looking to offer “at the door/walk up” booking service. Bookings will need to be made in advance of attendance by contacting the booking service at the mailbox below.

 The briefing sets out how to book a lateral flow (self-test) and how to contact the booking scheduler to book your tests. Broadly booking slots will be available between 8:00 am and 16:00 hours Monday to Friday, with early slots on a Monday dedicated to jurors to support our new juror intake.

 Professional court users, court based witness service staff, local CPS staff and dedicated SFO teams will all have access to test slots from Monday to Friday and we have allocated more test slots for professional court users between the hours of 12:00 noon and 14:00 hours, to take into account that professional court users may wish to book a test during this extended lunchtime period.

 I hope that this briefing is self-explanatory. If you have any residual questions, after reading the briefing, then please contact either myself or the booking and enquiries mailbox SouthwarkTestCentreEnquiriesandSupport@justice.gov.uk and we will respond as soon as we can but within 24 hours maximum.

                                                     

Kind regards,

 

Mark Troman

President

London Criminal Courts Solicitors’ Association

 

 

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