Almost 60,000 arrest warrants were issued for defendants who skipped court in England and Wales last year, up nearly 50% since 2020 in further evidence of the “horror show” in the criminal justice system.
The figures, obtained in an investigation by Channel 4’s Dispatches to air on Friday 29 May, also show that more than 30,000 failure-to-appear warrants are outstanding, meaning that tens of thousands of criminals could be on the run after being charged. It is unclear how many have more than one warrant to their name.
More than 7,000 of the outstanding warrants were issued before 2020, meaning the subjects have been on the run for six or more years, and more than a quarter relate to people accused of category A offences – the most serious and complex cases including rape, armed robbery and manslaughter.
The former justice secretary Alex Chalk KC said: “The real question is whether the situation is recoverable at all. Delay is toxic. Every prosecutor knows it gives defendants more opportunity to disappear. That’s why this is a horror show.
Alex Chalk KC. Photograph: Channel 4
“If you’re a defendant and you’ve been accused of a really appalling, serious crime, say rape, and you are told that your trial is not going to take place for three years, you might think: ‘Well, you know what? If I hang around, she’s going to get bored.’ So you might just go to Thailand.”
The number of rape victims pulling out of prosecutions before trial has more than doubled in recent years amid record delays in the courts system.
Chalk said a crisis had unfolded in the criminal justice system over the past five years as a result of the Covid pandemic, a barristers’ strike, underfunding of courts and a shortage of prison spaces.
The crown court backlog stood at more than 80,000 cases at the end of last year, more than double pre-pandemic levels, and is expected to reach 100,000 by 2028.
The prison population is expected to reach 100,000 by the end of the decade, more than double the figure in 1990.
Data obtained by the Press Association shows that 625 crown court trials are not expected to be heard until 2029 and a further 29 are scheduled for 2030.
Ersin Mustafa. Photograph: Channel 4
Chalk said that when he was justice secretary, he had told the then-prime minister, Rishi Sunak, of an impending crisis in the system. But Sunak ignored him, he said, leading to the two falling out.
Dispatches found that the number of failure-to-appear warrants in crown courts, where the most serious cases such as murder, rape and grievous bodily harm are heard, increased by 134%, from 6,808 in 2020 to 15,963 in 2024.
Using open-source intelligence, the documentary makers tracked down and interviewed five of the UK’s most wanted criminals – wanted for offences including shootings, stabbings, major drug trafficking and multimillion-pound insider trading – raising questions about the authorities’ failure to bring them to justice.
One of them, Ersin Mustafa, who was on the National Crime Agency (NCA)’s most-wanted list for alleged insider trading, said from North Cyprus: “They know I’m here … the most they’ve done is send me an email.”
Ciara Ryan. Photograph: Channel 4
Rashid Ali had been in the UK on a student visa. After fleeing back to his home country of Pakistan, he was found guilty in his absence of death by dangerous driving after he struck and killed Jack Ryan, a 29‑year‑old father‑to‑be.
Ali was sentenced to five years in prison but the film makers uncovered that he appeared to have returned to the UK unchallenged while having a warrant out for his arrest.
Ryan’s sister, Ciara, said: “I would like it to be the case that people facing serious charges and custodial sentences aren’t able to have their passport and then essentially abscond, as has been the case for us.
“Having been someone that’s never been involved with the justice system before, I had a lot of faith in it in the UK. I was a believer in that it worked … [but] it’s not working. It hasn’t worked for five years for my family.”
In response to freedom-of-information requests, 27 of the 43 police forces in England and Wales provided data for the number of failure-to-appear warrants issued from 2020 to 2025, meaning the actual number from last year is likely to be higher than the 59,153 recorded.
Similarly, three forces did not provide data for the number of outstanding warrants, which among the 40 other forces totalled 31,303.
The NCA has removed Mustafa from its most-wanted list. In response to the film’s findings, it said that it pursues fugitives “wherever they are in the world” and that “there are no safe havens for criminals”.
The Ministry of Justice said bail conditions were a matter for the courts, including the surrender of passports where appropriate. It said it was working on changes to address the crown court backlog.
The Crown Prosecution Service said it opposed bail applications if there were substantial grounds to believe a defendant would not attend court. It said it had worked to ensure Ali was held accountable even in his absence.
Custody time limits dictate that people should not usually spend more than six months in jail awaiting trial.
Hunting Britain’s Fugitives airs on Friday 29 May at 8pm on Channel 4 and will be available to stream on channel4.com
