Unfitness to Plead Consultation Responses - Law Commission ...

statistics. In 2008 there were 484 transfers of those who were “unsentenced and
untried “which means that many will still be subject to a trial. With these prisoners
they may or may not be convicted and some might even be found unfit to plead. We
just don’t know. It might be useful here if the “anecdotal evidence” referred to could
be explained as the comments about unfitness to plead at the foot of age 9 are
speculative.
Page 14 at section 2 what Vera Baird actually said was “This issue arises in only a small
percentage of cases, but in about 90 per cent. of the ones in which it does there is no
dispute—both sides experts agree that the person is unfit to plead—yet the current law still
requires a jury to be sworn in, which is an utter waste of money”
It’s not clear where she got this figure of 90% from as no source is given. In my earlier
empirical research on unfitness to plead I found that from 1992-1996 fitness to plead
was disputed in 8% of 125 cases with 13.6% being uncertain, see [2000] Crim LR at
537, Table 4. In my study of cases from 1997-2001 I found 6.7% of 329 cases were
contested but with 43.8% being uncertain, see [2007] Crim LR at 535, Table 5. It could
be therefore that 10% is an overestimate. It seems also that few “trials of the facts”
are contested; see Table 8 of the same paper.
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