Politics

Interpreter organisations, which have united as Professional Interpreters for Justice, have rejected the amended terms introduced by Capita from 1st May in a bid to attract more of their members to work in courts and tribunals. The Justice Minister, they say, is hiding behind this ‘new deal’ in a bid to distract attention from continuing poor performance and is not being honest regarding Government statistics which do not tell the whole story.

Incidences of interpreter ‘no shows’ and poor quality interpreting at courts and police stations across the UK continue to flood in every day. They include the postponement of a hearing in a quadruple murder case at Nottingham Crown Court on 10th May when a Mandarin interpreter booked for defendant Anxiang Du didn’t arrive, prompting High Court Judge Mr Justice Julian Flaux to label the outsourcing company ‘an absolute disgrace‘ and Northampton North MP Michael Ellis to say it showed the service was ‘out of control‘.

According to Professional Interpreters for Justice, the Justice Ministry’s own statistical report about the contract doesn’t give the whole picture as it does not report on the large number of interpreting assignments being arranged directly by court clerks who are bypassing Capita due to frustration with the system.

Professional Interpreters for Justice also claim that Justice Minister Helen Grant MP is wrong in stating that the recently announced changes to payments are “what interpreters want” in her report of 25th April to MPs, as interpreters have repeatedly stated the opposite in meetings held with the Ministry in recent weeks.

Interpreters were invited to meetings where proposals for pay adjustments were presented. They stated they were not interested in incentives, but instead wanted the Capita contract dropped as it disregards the importance of having professionally qualified interpreters to ensure a fair trial where defendants and witnesses do not speak English.

On behalf of Professional Interpreters for Justice, Keith Moffitt, the Chairman of the Chartered Institute of Linguists, says: “Interpreters do not want to be persuaded to work under the Capita contract and those invited to the meetings told the Ministry of Justice exactly that. Unfortunately, these weak proposals will do nothing to improve the poor performance which is clear will continue under the contract with Capita.”

Professional Interpreters for Justice, which represents ten groups, is angry that Helen Grant MP has brushed off the highly critical Justice Select Committee report without putting in place measures needed to address the failings, which have been described as ‘nothing short of shambolic’.

Paul Wilson, Chief Executive of the Institute of Translation and Interpreting (ITI), says: “We are ready to work on meaningful reforms once the Ministry of Justice cancels the contract with Capita. The adjustments in pay and other measures suggested by the Minister in her report are an attempt to deny the failure of the Framework Agreement and do not address many of the key recommendations set out by the Justice Select Committee.”

The Ministry of Justice has been repeatedly criticised for signing a four year Framework Agreement for language services with Applied Language Solutions (ALS), which was acquired by Capita in December 2011 and now operates as Capita Translation and Interpreting.

Professional Interpreters for Justice will be writing to the Justice Select Committee and the Public Accounts Committee to set out their concerns regarding the Minister’s apparent disregard for its recommendations and are calling for a parliamentary debate in relation to the Capita / MoJ Framework Agreement.

More details have now emerged about the postponement of a court hearing at Nottingham Crown Court on Friday for Anxiang Du, a Chinese businessman accused of stabbing a family of four to death in Northampton, due to the absence of a Mandarin interpreter, which was described at the time as “an absolute disgrace” by the judge, Mr Justice Julian Flaux (posts passim).

The judge has requested the attendance of an interpreter and on this particular point yesterday’s Express informed its readers as follows:

The clerk at Nottingham Crown Court said he had been told it was “not worthwhile” for an interpreter to turn up.

However, this version of events is disputed by Capita, as can be seen from the extract below from a report in Friday’s Northampton Chronicle and Echo:

A Capita spokesman said: “After the original interpreter booked to attend the hearing was unable to attend, Capita worked to secure a replacement.

“The replacement interpreter could not attend until 2.30pm and we communicated this, in good time, to the court.

“Capita at no time refused to arrange an interpreter to attend Nottingham Crown Court on cost or any other grounds.”

From the above quotation from the anonymous Capita spokesman, it is quite apparent that Capita is calling into question the honesty and integrity of the Nottingham Crown Court clerk or to put it into plainer English alleging the clerk is lying.

In my experience, clerks to the court are persons of the highest probity, whose duties according to Wikipedia include the following:

The Court Clerk is a critical safeguard for integrity of the courts. In most courts, only the clerk, but not a judge, is the keeper of the Seal of the Court. The clerk is also required to attest/authenticate judicial records, to render them such that command “full faith and credit”.

Who do you think is more likely to be lying: a crown court official with no axe to grind or a failing contractor incapable of meeting performance targets (posts passim) and trying to save face?

The evidence that Capita is incapable of providing an adequate interpreting service for courts and tribunals in England and Wales continues to pile up.

The latest failure comes from Nottingham where a court hearing for Anxiang Du, a Chinese businessman accused of stabbing a family of four to death in Northampton, was adjourned today because no Mandarin intrepreter was sent to the proceedings, according to the Northampton Chronicle.

At the hearing at Nottingham Crown Court, Mr Justice Julian Flaux explained that he had asked for an interpreter to be booked. However, he said Capita had indicated that it was not worth sending an interpreter as they “would not make enough money” from the hearing.

Mr Justice Flaux is reported to have said: “To say that the presiding judge of the court is annoyed about this is an understatement.” In addition, he ordered Capita to provide a written explanation giving their account of their failure to supply an interpreter for the proceedings.

The plea and case management hearing has now been set provisionally for 19th July, with the trial due to begin on 12th November.

A Mandarin interpreter did eventually arrive at the court at about 2.30pm, but the hearing had already been adjourned by then.

The letter below, originally posted on RPSI Linguist Lounge, has been sent to Helen Grant MP, Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State at the Ministry of Justice, in response to the recent announcement of an increase in the remuneration for linguists employed under the MoJ’s contract with Capita Translation & Interpreting (posts passim), an increase which will be borne by the taxpayer, not the contractor.

Dear Helen Grant,

I would like to congratulate you on increasing ‘the take-home pay of interpreters’. But this isn’t going to really change anything at all for interpreters in providing a better service as this increase is VERY minimal, as this still doesn’t fully cover the travel expenses of getting to a job location. There are very few of us who can afford to work full-time as a public service interpreter with the possibility of only earning £13.32 in a day (before tax). The calculations show that Capita does not even guarantee a rate equal to the minimum wage and at best the gross hourly rate for half a day at court has been reduced by 57.85% (even at the previous enhanced mileage rate of 40 [pence] per mile).

So what NEEDS to happen is: Tier 1 Police interpreting jobs need to be paid a premium of about £30 per hour with FULL travel expenses covered, door to door travel mileage at a rate of £0.40 per mile and full travel time of £10 an hour, to ensure interpreters/translators accept the assignment and arrive at the immediate police job as soon as possible, as most Police jobs are emergencies and are needed very quickly, otherwise the ‘criminal’ will have to either stay in custody till a interpreter arrives (which could take days, with the low pay for interpreters) OR they can just be freed on bail back on to the streets, so they can re-offend and make the streets even less safe.

Also the mileage rate needs to become £0.40 per mile across the board; so Tier 1, 2 and 3 because as I said the current £0.20 rate is just horrendous, making it not even viable to even head out to go to a job assignment because the interpreters will still be making a loss at the end of the day!

If you listen to what I am trying to say, you will find out that this will, in essence, bring the full qualified interpreters back to the court room and make justice possible!

How can you do this to interpreters which have trained for many years to get to where they’re to then be paid a minimum wage?! No wonder they’ve boycotted Capita! They deserve to be paid a way more than what is currently being paid. So when the rates eventually rise, then we shall see very positive work from Interpreters and Translators. But hopefully you will fix this issue because at the end of the day, this just isn’t fair on the interpreters, translators, solicitors, barristers and judges.

I hope to see a reply from you.

Kind Regards

The Ipswich Star reports today that interpreter is under investigation following the collapse of a trial, in which she was said to have coached a victim of alleged grievous bodily harm while he was giving his evidence in a case at Ipswich Crown Court.

The trial was in its third day when Recorder Peter Wallis discharged the jury, stating that the interpreter was not reliable.

One of the 3 defendants in the dock clearly heard the Tamil interpreter from 25 feet as witness Niruban Amirthalingham was about to resume his testimony.

The female interpreter could now face possible charges of contempt of court or perverting the course of justice.

The incident took place after the trial resumed after lunch on Tuesday.

Some 5-10 minutes into the cross-examination of Mr. Amirthalingham by Matthew Jewell, representing defendant Karunanidhy Nallathamby – one of 3 defendants in the case – the barrister’s attention was drawn to his client wishing to speak to him.

Mr. Jewell subsequently asked for an adjournment, requesting that the jury, witness and interpreter leave the court.

The barrister then told Recorder Wallis his client had heard the interpreter tell Mr. Amirthalingham in Tamil before the jury returned to court: “If you get a chance tell them they snatched the bar from you.”

The Crown brought its own interpreter to court yesterday (Thursday) to verify what was being alleged by Mr. Nallathamby.

Mr. Jewell pointed out the court did not know if any other exchanges had previous taken place between the the interpreter and the witness.

Recorder Wallis remarked that on the face of things the interpreter’s action it was not merely contempt of court and could constitute a case of perverting the course of justice.

Crown Court trials are believed to cost at least £3,000 a day, so this trial had already cost the public purse £9,000 before collapsing due to an unprofessional interpreter.

The evidence continues to stack up that Capita Translation & Interpreting just cannot fulfil the contract it has with the Ministry of Justice for the provision of interpreting services for courts and tribunals.

On Wednesday last week, This is Wiltshire reported on a trial at Swindon Crown Court for grievous bodily harm which had to be adjourned due to the non-appearance of an interpreter.

A 27 year-old Pole resident in Staverton left a man needing surgery on a fractured eye socket after an assault in a bar in Swindon in November last year.

Although the defendant pleaded guilty, sentencing has been adjourned on Tuesday by Recorder Michael Selfe until an interpreter can attend as the defendant does not speak good enough English to understand court proceedings.

The defendant was released on bail.

Courts really should start recouping the costs of delays to cases and the additional expenses incurred from Capita T&I.