{"id":26378,"date":"2023-10-24T07:24:00","date_gmt":"2023-10-24T11:24:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/worldjusticenews.com\/news\/?p=26378"},"modified":"2023-10-24T07:24:00","modified_gmt":"2023-10-24T11:24:00","slug":"court-transcript-costs-are-exploitative-victims","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/worldjusticenews.com\/news\/2023\/10\/24\/court-transcript-costs-are-exploitative-victims\/","title":{"rendered":"Court transcript costs are exploitative – victims"},"content":{"rendered":"
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Victims of violent and sexual crimes are calling for court transcript costs to be cut after they were quoted “unaffordable” sums for them.<\/b><\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n

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They told BBC Newsnight that charging thousands of pounds for copies of court hearings was “exploitative”.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n

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One rape survivor said she was quoted \u00a37,500 for the transcript of her trial.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n

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The Ministry of Justice (MoJ) said victims could ask a judge to order a transcript at public expense, but cases were not routinely transcribed.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n

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“If the request is declined, the fee covers the considerable costs that come with writing up the audio recording of potentially weeks’ worth of hearings,” a MoJ spokesperson said.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n

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Warning: This article contains details some readers may find distressing.<\/b><\/i><\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n

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Juliana was raped by her former partner in 2020.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n

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“He drugged me. He recorded the video of himself raping me and he actually played it back to me after waking me up,” she said. “He then threatened to send the video to my 88-year-old father. That’s when I reported him to the police.”<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n

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Juliana’s former partner was convicted by a jury at a trial, which lasted ten days.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n

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She later wanted to revisit what had been said in court, but her request for a free copy of the transcript was rejected.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n

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She was told provisions were only made in exceptional circumstances, such as in murder and manslaughter cases, but those circumstances were “not met in your application”.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n

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Instead, she was advised to contact one of the companies outsourced by the government to supply transcripts.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n

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Acolad UK Limited quoted \u00a37,459 for the transcription, Juliana said. The firm said the price was an estimate based on the length of the audio, which needed to be listened to by a transcriber.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n

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“I just thought ‘I can’t afford this’. I had to stop working. My mental health was a mess,” Juliana said. “Why do I have to pay for a service with data that is pertaining to me?”<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n

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