Victims of crime have reacted with anger after it was revealed Oxford Crown Court’s backlog of cases waiting to be heard had almost doubled in less than a year.

The backlog has spiralled because the court was forced to take dozens of cases from outside the county.

The Thames Valley region, which includes Reading and Aylesbury as well as Oxford, has been named the country’s slowest for starting cases.

Rebecca Holmes, whose fiance Stephen Pinker was murdered outside the Corner House pub, in Cowley, Oxford, last March, said she was angered by the delays.

The 29-year-old, from Witney, said she was bitterly disappointed when the sentencing of Mr Pinker’s killer, Christopher Philp, then 26, was adjourned.

She said: “Because we were all psyched up it was anger and complete disappointment.

“Cases need to be heard as soon as possible so the families are not suffering.”

Philp, of Wood Farm, admitted murder in June, but the case was adjourned three times, first to July to establish exactly what happened, then to October when his barrister was unable to attend, before he was jailed in November.

The National Audit Office said Oxford’s backlog had increased from 65 to 106 cases per court room because it took dozens of cases from Reading.

About 35 per cent of all new trials were passed from Reading to Oxford between January and September 2008 to help Reading tackle its backlog.

The arrangement was stopped because Oxford’s backlog increased so quickly.

The region’s crown courts started 65.7 per cent of cases within 26 weeks in 2007/08, compared to the top-performing region, North Wales, at 97.2 per cent.

Tim Burr, head of the National Audit Office, said: “The service needs to improve its allocation and development of staff, so that it has enough well-trained people in each of its court locations, and tackle weaknesses in IT systems which currently bring operational risks and impair efficiency.”

A courts service spokesman said it was committed to ensuring cases were heard in a “timely fashion”.

He said: “Despite pressures in the region, the Thames Valley area has increased the number of cases it deals with within target.”

Banbury MP Tony Baldry, a barrister, said: “It is unfair on victims, it is unfair on witnesses and it is also unfair on the defendants. Justice delayed is never good news.

“It is clearly time the Ministry of Justice works out that it actually needs extra capacity to deal with all these cases.”

esimmonds@oxfordmail.co.uk