1. Key Findings

1.1 About this bulletin

This bulletin presents data on the average (measured as the median) time taken for criminal cases dealt with at the Crown and at magistrates’ courts in Northern Ireland for the year 1 April 2025 to 31 March 2026. It measures the time from when the offence was reported to, or detected by, the police to when the offence was dealt with at court.

The average is reported as the median number of days, which is the number of days at which 50% of cases have been completed.

Prior to the pandemic, the time taken to complete criminal cases from offence reported to disposal at court, was generally improving. The pandemic however, disrupted court operations, particularly during 2020-21. As a result, for a large part of that year, many cases were delayed, creating a backlog that had to be cleared in subsequent years, particularly in Crown Court, and reflected in the five-year time series included in this bulletin.

Diagram of main points in 2025-26 (information is provided in main text)

1.2 Overall

• In 2025-26, the average time from the date the offence was reported to court disposal, across all courts, was 209 days; 20 days more than the previous year (189 days) and the slowest time in the past four years.

1.3 Crown Court

• In 2025-26, charge cases at Crown Court took an average of 521 days to complete from offence reported to court disposal, 3.9% (21 days) faster than the previous year (542 days).

• Summons cases at Crown Court took an average of 1,174 days to complete from offence reported to court disposal, 3.1% (37 days) faster than in 2024-25 (1,211 days).

1.4 Adult Magistrates’ Courts

• In 2025-26, charge cases at adult magistrates’ courts, took an average of 92 days to complete from offence reported to court disposal, the same number of days taken in the previous year (92 days).

• Summons cases at adult magistrates’ courts, took an average of 239 days, 7.2% slower than in 2024-25 (223 days).

1.5 Youth Magistrates’ Courts

• In 2025-26, the average time taken for a charge case to complete from offence reported to court disposal at youth magistrates’ courts, was 159 days, a day slower than in 2024-25 (158 days).

• For summons cases dealt with at youth magistrates’ courts, the average time was 257 days, 11.4% faster than in 2024-25 (290 days).

1.6 Processing Times by Offence Category

• In 2025-26, cases involving public order offences had the shortest median processing time, taking 163 days to complete from offence reported to court disposal. The longest median time was for cases involving fraud offences, at 549 days.

2. Introduction

2.1 About this bulletin

The efficiency of the criminal justice system is important for building trust among victims, witnesses, their families, and communities. Resolving cases quickly also helps offenders understand the consequences of their actions. Speeding up justice therefore remains a priority for the Department of Justice (DoJ).

The aim of this report is to show how key ‘speeding up justice’ initiatives, put in place through law reform and improvements in procedures, have impacted how long cases take. It focuses on the time from when a crime is reported or discovered by police to when the case is completed in court.

The report follows official statistical standards and includes data on how long criminal cases took in Northern Ireland’s Crown and magistrates’ courts (for both adults and youth) between 1 April 2025 and 31 March 2026. These two courts have separate remits and hear particular types of cases. Generally speaking, Crown Courts handle more serious and complex cases, which usually take longer than those in magistrates’ courts.

As well as breaking down the analysis by court type (Crown Court, adult magistrates’ or youth magistrates’ courts), the report also includes information broken down by case type (charge or summons case).

This bulletin includes a five-year time series. Trends should be interpreted in the context of the COVID-19 pandemic: although case completion times were generally falling before the pandemic, court disruptions during 2020-21 led to delays and increased backlogs, particularly in the Crown Court, which are reflected in the figures presented.

Details of data coverage, quality and methodology are provided in Appendix 1. Data in all tables and charts in the report, along with supplementary data, are available on the DoJ website at Case Processing Time Tables for 2025-26.

The next update, covering the 12 months to 31 March 2027, will be published in August 2027. A full schedule of future publications is available on the DoJ website.

3. Cases

3.1 Cases included

Details of cases included in the calculations are outlined in Appendix 1. In summary, they include cases that were:

• Prosecuted by the Public Prosecution Service (PPS) on behalf of the Police Service of Northern Ireland (PSNI),

• Resolved in court (not settled out of court), and

• Where all the necessary information was available.

Cases involving a breach of a previous court order are not included.

3.2 Overall

In 2025-26, the number of overall cases completed (which were included in the dataset) was 23,726, a decrease of 6.7% from the total in 2024-25 (25,427). The number of cases going through the courts in Northern Ireland has fallen for a third consecutive year. The DoJ introduced measures to assist on recovery of backlogs from 2020-21, when case completions were affected by Covid-19 lockdowns and restrictions. It should also be noted that, more recently, Crown Court figures have been impacted by a withdrawal of services by Criminal Barristers. A partial withdrawal of services occurred from 01 November 2024, with a full withdrawal of services undertaken from 06 January 2025 to 28 February 2025 and from 5 January 2026.

3.3 Crown Court

At Crown Court, there were 1,226 cases completed, 62.6% were charge and 37.4% were summons cases. In 2025-26, the number of charge cases completed at Crown Court fell by 2.9% from 791 in 2024-25 to 768 in 2025-26. There was a much larger drop in summons cases completed at Crown Court, decreasing by 31.6% in the latest year, from 670 in 2024-25 to 458 in 2025-26. Overall, this represents a 16.1% decrease for cases dealt with at Crown Court, compared to 2024-25 (1,461).

Figure 1a: Number of included Crown Court cases

3.4 Adult Magistrates

The number of charge cases completed (7,634) at adult magistrates’ courts was 4.0% lower than the previous year (7,952) and was the lowest in the last four years. The number of summons cases completed (14,175) fell by 7.1% from the total for 2024-25 (15,252) and was also the lowest in the last five years.

Figure 1b: Number of included Adult Magistrates’ Courts cases.

3.5 Youth Magistrates

There were 210 charge cases at youth magistrates’ courts, 7 more than in the previous year (203). The number of summons cases dealt with at youth magistrates’ courts (481) decreased by 14.0% compared to the previous year (559 in 2024-25). This most recent total is the lowest in the last five years for this type of case (Figures 1a, 1b and 1c, Tables 1 to 7 in the accompanying Case Processing Time Tables for 2025-26).

Figure 1c: Number of included Youth Magistrates’ Courts cases

4. Time Taken

4.1 All Cases

Some, complex cases take a long time to complete and, because of this, it is useful to show not just an average processing time from offence reported to court disposal, but the time taken to process the bulk of cases. In this bulletin, the length of time in which 80% and 90% of cases are completed is also reported.

In 2025-26, it took an average (median) of 209 days for a case dealt with at court to be completed after the offence was reported. This is a 10.6% increase in the the number of days taken in 2024-25 (189 days) and the slowest time recorded in the last four years.

It took 410 days for 80% of the cases to be completed in 2025-26, 2 days more than that of the previous year (408 in 2024-25). For 90% of cases, it took 622 days, 22 days less than the 644 days recorded the previous year (Figure 2, Table 1 in the accompanying Case Processing Time Tables for 2025-26).

Figure 2: Time taken for all cases from date incident reported to disposal at court

4.2 Crown Court

In 2025-26, charge cases dealt with at Crown Court had a median time from offence reported date to court disposal of 521 days, down from 542 days in 2024-25 and the fastest processing times observed in the last five years. Whilst the median time improved, the processing times for the 80th and 90th percentiles increased, indicating that the longest-running cases took longer to complete in 2025-26 compared to 2024-25. It took 845 days for 80% of cases to be completed, a 5.0% increase from 2024-25 (805 days). For 90% of cases, it took 1,147 days, 16.2% slower than in 2024-25 (987 days) (Figure 3, Table 2 in the accompanying Case Processing Time Tables for 2025-26).

Of all case types, summons cases at Crown Court have taken the longest time to complete from offence reported date to court disposal in each of the last five years. That said, an improvement was observed for all timeliness measures for this type of case in 2025-26, compared to the previous year. In 2025-26, the median time was 1,174 days. This was 3.1% shorter than the previous year (1,211 days). It took 1,750 days for 80% of cases to be completed, a decrease of 16.6% from 2024-25 (2,098 days). The time by which 90% of Crown Court summons cases were completed, from offence reported date to disposal, decreased substantially (30.8%), from 3,279 days in 2024-25 to 2,269 days in 2025-26, indicating a reduction in the time taken among the longest-running cases. (Figure 4, Table 3 in the accompanying Case Processing Time Tables for 2025-26).

Figure 3: Time taken for charge cases dealt with at Crown Court from date incident reported to disposal at court

Figure 4: Time taken for summons cases dealt with at Crown Court from date incident reported to disposal at court

4.3 Adult Magistrates’ Courts

In 2025-26, the median time taken for a charge case to be dealt with at adult magistrates’ courts from the date the offence was reported was 92 days, the length of time remains unchanged from the previous year. It took 193 days for 80% of cases to be completed in 2025-26, 5 days less than the previous year (198 days) and the least number of days in the past five years. For 90% of cases, it took 273 days, 4.5% faster than in 2024-25 (286 days) and also the least number of days in the past five years. (Figure 5, Table 4 in the accompanying Case Processing Time Tables for 2025-26).

The median time taken for a summons case to be dealt with at adult magistrates’ courts from the date the offence was reported was 239 days in 2025-26, an increase of 7.2% from 2024-25 (223 days). It took 449 days for 80% of cases to be completed, 6.1% slower than in 2024-25 (423 days). For 90% of cases, it took 642 days, 3.2% slower than in the previous year (622 days) (Figure 6, Table 5 in the accompanying Case Processing Time Tables for 2025-26).

Figure 5: Time taken for charge cases completed at Adult Magistrates’ Courts from date incident reported to disposal at court

Figure 6: Time taken for summons cases completed at Adult Magistrates’ Courts from date incident reported to disposal at court

4.4 Youth Magistrates’ Courts

In 2025-26, the median time taken for a charge case to be dealt with at youth magistrates’ courts from the date it was reported, was 159 days, a day more than the previous year (158 days). It took 267 days for 80% of cases to be completed in 2025-26, 2.7% slower than the previous year (260 days). For 90% of cases, it took 339 days, 9.0% slower than in 2024-25 (311 days) (Figure 7, Table 6 in the accompanying Case Processing Time Tables for 2025-26).

The median time taken for a summons case to be dealt with at youth magistrates’ courts, was 257 days in 2025-26, 11.4% faster than the previous year (290 days). It took 467 days for 80% of cases to be completed, 10.9% faster than in 2024-25 (524 days). For 90% of cases, it took 691 days, 15.7% shorter than in the previous year (820 days) (Figure 8, Table 7 in the accompanying Case Processing Time Tables for 2025-26).

Figure 7: Time taken for charge cases completed at Youth Magistrates’ courts from date incident reported to disposal at court

Figure 8: Time taken for summons cases completed at Youth Magistrates’ courts from date incident reported to disposal at court

4.5 Offence Category

In 2025-26, cases involving fraud offences took the longest to complete from offence reported to court disposal, with a median time of 549 days. Cases involving sexual offences took the second longest to complete, taking on average 547 days from date reported to disposal at court. The length of time taken for this type of case is the shortest in the last five years and represents a 13.2% decrease from the time taken in previous year (630 days).

In contrast, cases involving public order (163 days) or criminal damage & arson offences (166 days) were resolved the fastest. Motoring offences saw the biggest percentage increase in the median time taken from 2024-25 to 2025-26, increasing by more than a third (34.2%) from 152 days to 204 days from the time the offence was reported until disposal at court (Figure 9, Table 8 in the accompanying Case Processing Time Tables for 2025-26). This increase may, in part, have been due to a change in recording practice for some types of motoring offences.

Offence categories with higher proportions of cases disposed at Crown Court, such as robbery, sexual offences, burglary and fraud generally had longer median processing times than the overall median of 209 days (Table 8 in the accompanying Case Processing Time Tables for 2025-26). Thus when considering average time taken for cases to complete from offence reported to court disposal, it is important to remember that different types of offences are more likely to be handled in different courts (Crown Court, or a magistrates’ court). It may be more appropriate therefore to compare trends over time within each offence type, rather than comparing different offence types to each other.

Figure 9: Time taken for all cases to complete at courts by offence category

5. Appendix 1: Methodology and Counting Rules

Introduction

The criminal justice system aims to ensure that appropriate actions are taken when someone is found guilty of a crime. For less serious offences, early and proportionate responses—like diversion or using discretion—can help avoid formal court proceedings. These cases are often handled outside of court for the benefit of the individual or the public.

When cases do go to court in Northern Ireland, they are heard in either the Crown Court or in magistrates’ courts (for both adults and youth). The type of court depends on how serious the offence is and the possible sentence which may be imposed. Crown Court cases usually take longer than those in magistrates’ courts.

Some cases may not go through the full court process because of insufficient evidence or if the charges are dropped. Cases may be brought to court by way of summons or charge and may be dealt with in different types of courts. However, despite differences in the types of court, the types of offences and the method by which a defendant is brought to court, the process through which a case proceeds from offence reported to case dealt with, is generally the same (detailed below in the figure below).

Methodlogy of how a defenddant is brought to court

The offence is first reported to the police, or detected by the police, (Offence reported/detected), after which an investigation is conducted. Subject to the outcome of that investigation, the police may charge a suspect, or inform the suspect that they are to be reported (Defendant charged/informed) to the PPS, who will review the case and take a decision as to whether or not to instigate a prosecution.

If a decision is made to prosecute by way of a charge sheet, the police charge the suspect, who has been arrested, and the PPS review the charge before the first court appearance to make sure there is enough evidence at that stage for the defendant to be prosecuted. The defendant will either be:

  • held in police custody overnight and produced at the first available court, where the court will then consider the issue of bail; or

  • released on police bail to appear before court on a stated date within 28 days from the charge.

If the case is commenced by way of a summons, this is issued by either the PPS or a third party (i.e. a government department) and is served on the defendant either by post or in person. The defendant will be required to go to court on the date stated on the summons.

When the police have collected enough evidence, a case file will be prepared and submitted to the PPS (File submission to PPS). The PPS then must apply the test for prosecution and decide whether to prosecute (PPS decision). If the PPS decides to prosecute, a first court date will be set (First court appearance) and the case will proceed through the court as normal with the examination of evidence and witnesses and opportunities for both the prosecution and defence to make their cases. The process concludes when a decision is made by the court. A case is dealt with in court when a defendant is either acquitted, or if the defendant is convicted, when a sentence has been handed down (Court disposal).

It is important to note however, that cases instigated by way of police charge (rather than reported to PPS), will ordinarily appear in court prior to PPS taking a prosecution decision. In general, the purpose of such pre-prosecution decision hearings is to determine issues such as bail or remand. For the purpose of this bulletin therefore, in cases brought before the court by way of charge, the date of the first court appearance relates to the first occasion on which the case appears in court after the PPS has taken a decision to prosecute. In effect therefore, the data ignores court appearances which occur before a prosecution decision is taken. The Department has adopted this approach, with the agreement of criminal justice partners, to provide a better basis for comparing charge cases with reported.

What counts as a case

This bulletin reports on court cases from the year specified, where the PPS prosecuted on behalf of the PSNI, Harbour Police, Airport Constabulary, or the National Crime Agency (NCA). A case is considered to start when an offence is reported or discovered by one of these agencies. It is counted in the statistics once it has gone through the full court process and reached a conclusion. The time measured is the number of calendar days from when the offence was reported to when the court made its final decision for cases dealt with at courts in the year specified. Court recess dates are not taken into account.

Cases that are resolved outside of court, or that don’t complete the full court process, are not included in this dataset. Also excluded, are cases about breaches of previous court orders, as they don’t follow the usual process for new offences. Because of these exclusions, the figures in this bulletin do not represent all court cases—only those that meet the criteria for this dataset. Overall case volumes dealt with by the Northern Ireland Courts and Tribunals Service may be sourced on the NICTS statistics bulletins page.

The court processing time data is based on the main offence (principal offence) a person is convicted of or dealt with for. This principal offence is usually the one that leads to the most serious punishment. The offences someone is convicted of may be different from the original charges, as these can change during the case. The outcome recorded is the court’s final decision, not including any later appeals. The method for selecting the principal offence follows rules from the Home Office, and the DoJ has developed a methodology applicable to Northern Ireland based on these.

Data source and coverage

The statistics are based on administrative data from the Causeway Data Sharing Mechanism (DSM1), mainly using records from the Criminal Records Viewer (CRV). The CRV includes information from the Police Service of Northern Ireland (PSNI), the Public Prosecution Service (PPS), and the Northern Ireland Courts and Tribunals Service. Causeway is a shared information system used by criminal justice organisations in Northern Ireland.

Northern Ireland’s court system is different from those in England and Wales, Scotland, and the Republic of Ireland, so no comparisons are made between them.

Full details of data relevance, accuracy, timeliness, accessibility, coherence, user need, cost and confidentiality is available in the accompanying background quality report. Details of the data quality checks and processes that DoJ has in place are available in the Quality Assurance of Administrative Data (QAAD) document on the DoJ website.

Data strengths and limitations

Strengths

  • Causeway is an integrated messaging system specifically designed to enable the five main criminal justice organisations in Northern Ireland to share information. It uses data from each organisation’s own system which is used to manage day to day business, so the information needs to be highly accurate.

  • The system is reliable, easy to maintain, and trusted by staff. Key staff members have strong experience and skills in using and managing it.

  • The data comes from a full administrative system, meaning it includes all cases—not just a sample. Important data fields are complete and logical.

  • Over time, the system and processes have been improved to fix any quality issues. Statisticians use detailed checks to find and correct any problems in the data.

Limitations

  • The system relies on staff from five different organisations to enter and update information in their own systems.If updates are delayed or mistakes are made, it can cause problems. Because the information is so important however, accuracy is essential.

Interpreting the data

The figures mainly show the average time from when an offence is reported to when the case is resolved in court. The average used here is the median, which means half of the cases were completed in less time, and half took longer. Times for the 80th and 90th percentiles are also given—these show how long it took to complete 80% and 90% of cases, respectively.

Initial analysis showed that a few very slow cases can distort the mean (regular average), making it less reliable. Because of this, the median is used instead, as it gives a better picture of typical case times by avoiding the influence of unusually long cases. For example, the ‘average’ number of days taken to complete a case in 2025-26, when measured using the median, was 209 days compared to 298 days when measured using the mean. The mean however, reflects the time it took to complete the slowest 30% of cases, as 298 days falls at the 70th percentile (Figure 10).

Figure 10: Distribution curve of cases by days taken from offence reported date to case dealt with at court date

Distribution curve of cases by days taken from offence reported date to case dealt with at court date

Contact Details

Published by: Analytical Services Group, Department of Justice

Email: statistics.research@justice-ni.gov.uk

This bulletin is available on: Department of Justice website

Feedback on this publication can be provided directly to Analytical Services Group at the email address listed above.

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