I have other much weirder stories, but the interpreter Code of Ethics guarantees confidentiality and I would have to give too many personal details

See also File on Four's investigation of the enshittening of interpreting in healthcare that has led to the death or serious birth injury of some 80 babies in the past 5 years www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/m...

Who have such derisory T&Cs for the interpreter that no one will take it up (especially NRPSI registered interpreters). Another thing the thread above implied - Interpreters are not just for defendants - but witnesses (including victims).

Public service interpreting getting privatised, farmed out to big agencies and enshittified

As a former military linguist, I always preferred the label "interpreter" because we… weren't linguists.

At least half the reason I pursued a degree in linguistics is because I was called it so often and didn't want to be a fraud.

3. The Witness Care Unit forgetting to tell witnesses to attend trial. Meaning the whole trial has to be adjourned.

10. Not enough barristers to cover cases. Often - especially in serious, specialised and difficult work such as Rape and Serious Sexual Offences - the CPS will not be able to find an available barrister, due to so many having quit. www.lawgazette.co.uk/news/barrist...

8. A lift being broken (lying unfixed for weeks because no engineer can be found/afforded), meaning that a disabled witness cannot attend a trial.

9. Queues to enter the court building taking over an hour, due to insufficient numbers of security staff to conduct the on-the-door checks. Meaning jurors, witnesses, interpreters and defendants are stuck outside the building while the hours tick by.

7. The ancient court plumbing giving up, meaning no running water or flushing toilets, meaning everybody is sent home.

6. The nationwide breakdown of the Crown Court Digital Case System and/or Common Platform.

Happens pretty much weekly. All cases are now digital. When the abysmal infrastructure (which has been in Beta for years) freezes or breaks, everything grinds to a standstill.

5. The Crown Prosecution Service failing to serve key evidence or critical disclosure until the day of trial, giving insufficient time for the defence to consider it, and causing the trial to be adjourned.

4. Judge having extra hearings shoved into their courtrooms during a trial, meaning that the trial overruns. Or, if the trial cannot overrun - because jurors or the judge have immovable commitments - the trial collapses and is adjourned for a year or two

1. The defendant not being produced at court from prison. 🚚

A classic. It happens due to the private contractors simply not bothering, knowing that the contracts negotiated by government include no meaningful penalty for failure.

Trials every day in every court are affected.

2. The court forgetting to book an interpreter for a defendant.

Another perennial. Every day in every court building.

See also: the court booking an interpreter, and the interpreter just not turning up.