Widow waits five years for trial of husband's carer

The widow of a man who was allegedly mistreated by his carer will have waited more than five years for the case to reach court.

Former fish and chip shop owner John Dutton suffered a severe stroke in 2017 that left him in a wheelchair, unable to speak and needing 24-hour care.

Before he died in 2022, concerns were raised over the way he was being treated, and his carer, Jasbir Kau, 44, was later arrested and charged with three counts of ill treatment or neglect by a care worker.

John's wife Christine, 80, from Huddersfield, says that after multiple court dates were cancelled and pushed back, she has now been given a fixed date of August 2027, but that the process has left the family "exhausted".

"I haven't truthfully had a full night's sleep since we started.

"It's wasting so much money and time and it's just not good enough, and it's not nice to have to keep on worrying at this stage of my life."

The delay is due to the case being treated as a floating trial, when several trials are scheduled on the same date. As a result, not all of them proceed as planned.

The carer's first appearance at Huddersfield Magistrates' Court was in 2023, and the case was then sent to Leeds Crown Court for a hearing in March 2025.

The first trial was postponed due to no courtroom being available and a new date was set for June 2026 before a second adjournment for the same reason.

A third date was listed for 2028, but after a police officer who worked on the case complained, a final fixed date was moved to August 2027.

John's daughter Elizabeth McGuire, 57, has called the court system a "shambles".

"I don't want to remember my dad as a court case. I want to remember him as the person he was.

"I thought you went to court and it was read that day and there just doesn't seem to be any thought about how this is affecting our mental health."

Floating trials have been an option for decades to maximise court efficiency, but in recent years their use has skyrocketed due to backlogs, and their effectiveness differs depending on the type of court.

Leeds, Sheffield and York crown courts have seen a small reduction in the backlog in recent months.

According to the Criminal Bar Association (CBA), at Leeds Crown Court there was a 0.8% reduction over the six months to June.

It was a similar story for Sheffield which saw a 2.6% drop to 1,884 cases and York which had 457 cases delayed - a reduction of 2.3%.

However, for magistrates' courts across West Yorkshire, the backlog has risen 29% in the last 12 months to a record high.

The vice-chair of the CBA, Kama Melly KC of Park Square Chambers in Leeds, says that while floating trials can be disruptive, a new national listing protocol introduced last month should help reduce the backlogs and minimise the need for them.

"The system is something that we're used to and is far from perfect," she says.

"This new national mechanism is designed to tackle the historic backlog and should mean that priority is given to some of our most vulnerable witnesses and indeed defendants, rather than just dealing with cases on a first-come-first-served basis."

Justice Secretary Alex Norris has pushed to recruit more magistrates to ease the pressures in the courts after ministers warned it could take "nearly 300 years" to reduce the backlog of cases back to pre-pandemic levels.

In September the government also pledged £1.5m to help fund the training of 100 more barristers per year in a bid to remove barriers to the legal profession and increase capacity.

At the end of 2025 the crown court backlog stood at almost 80,000 cases and Ministry of Justice (MoJ) figures showed significant growth in cases that took two or more years to conclude.

Reasons cited for the delays include; the closure of eight crown and 160 magistrates' court buildings since 2022; a cap on the number of days judges are paid to sit; Covid lockdowns; strike action by barristers; and investment in policing meaning more cases are being sent to court.

The growth of digital evidence - such as that obtained from a mobile phone - has also complicated the process.

The Ministry of Justice said: "We inherited a courts system at the brink of collapse with victims waiting too long for justice, and we recognise the devastating impact these delays can have.

"That's why we're acting on all fronts - investing at record levels, driving system efficiency, and delivering structural reforms to tackle the backlog and deliver swifter justice for all."

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