A day in the life of court-hopping criminal solicitor

There are "defence deserts" in parts of England and Wales because lawyers have been quitting the profession, BBC News has been told. The warning comes as the Law Society, which represents criminal solicitors, prepares to go to court over pay - saying duty solicitors are struggling to make the system work.

There may be bottlenose dolphins frolicking in Cardigan Bay, on the west coast of Wales - but that's far from the mind of criminal solicitor Katy Hanson, as she begins her morning. It's 8am and she's got calls asking her to get to a court, which is 30 miles (50km) away. It's going to be a long day.

Katy is already behind the wheel of her car and raring to get out of Cardigan, in Ceredigion, where her firm is based.

Welcome to the world of a duty defence solicitors - one of the busiest and most challenging roles in justice.

Katy needs to get to Haverfordwest Magistrates Court - a 40-minute drive away.

"I'm the duty solicitor this morning in court," she says. "So it's seeing whether there's anyone who was held over in custody, or if there is anyone that needs representation that doesn't have a solicitor."

The wheels of justice can't turn without duty defence solicitors. Everyone accused of a crime is entitled to receive independent legal advice. Unsurprisingly, most people neither have a criminal defence solicitor on speed dial, nor the money to pay for one.

In England and Wales, the Legal Aid system, funded by the government, pays for a bank of on-call duty solicitors organised around local police areas.

"If people don't have access to legal advice, then you are pretty much in a police state," says Katy. "To be able to help someone when they are at crisis point is quite a privileged position. As corny as it sounds, that is what motivates me."

But here's the problem - the patches have been getting bigger as fewer and fewer people like Katy are prepared to do the work.

When she's on duty every other day, she covers a vast swathe of Ceredigion and Pembrokeshire - from Haverfordwest in the south to Aberystwyth in the north.

She can be called to police stations that are 80 miles (130km) apart - sometimes at the same time.

By 9:30am, we're at Haverfordwest Magistrates' Court and her to-do list is growing. Katy has been told there are two men who need advising.

One is stuck in a prisoner transport van coming south from Aberystwyth. The court can't progress either case until Katy has met the men to advise them what's in their best interests.

"They're no doubt frightened about what's going to happen. They don't know what the options are for the court. They don't know whether they're going to prison."

What would happen if she couldn't make it this morning?

"There may be times if a solicitor is not available that a court may adjourn the case to another day. But that could result in someone being kept in custody."

The first man's case is swiftly dealt with. And as the clock ticks towards 1pm, the van carrying the second finally arrives. It's three hours late. Nobody seems to know why.

Once Katy has advised the man - which takes less than half an hour - his case is over in a flash.

A chronic drug abuser, he admits breaching his probation order - but the minutes he has spent with Katy allows her to tell the court about his attempts to change his life.

He leaves court with a fine and outside he's clearly relieved.

"I would have got sent down [if it had not been for the solicitor]," he says. "I've never been to prison before. Don't ever want to go. I'm a good person."

He wanders off in his custody tracksuit clutching a plastic bag of belongings. Across the car park, Katy is already worrying about the next job.

She had been asked to go to a local police station, which became impractical because of the delays at court. But now she knows she must drive two hours back north to attend an interview in Aberystwyth.

The police there detained a suspect overnight - but they cannot interview him without a solicitor. The 24-hour clock on holding him in custody is ticking. And this is where the scale of the challenge for Katy becomes clear.

She's one of four duty solicitors at the Pembrokeshire end of her patch - and one of three in Aberystwyth to the north.

"About 15 years ago there were probably about 15 or 16 duty solicitors," she says. "Over the years, people have either retired or decided they no longer wish to deal with legal aid. "And it's very, very hard to convince young people that there's a future in dealing with legal aid."

In 2021, the government's independent review of criminal legal aid recommended a huge number of reforms, including a minimum increase in pay of 15% to reverse years of freezes to the payment.

The new fixed fee Katy would get for advising a client at a police station client is £235.

Lawyers say that's just not competitive with what a solicitor can earn for far less stressful work - work that does not involve getting called out in the middle of the night, or on Christmas Day.

The Law Society, which represents all solicitors, says the national scheme is in crisis - and duty solicitor "deserts" are developing.

It says the number of duty solicitors has fallen by 1,446 since 2017 - a 26% reduction in numbers. It predicts another 618 solicitors will quit by 2027. The workforce is getting older and older.

Almost every police area of England and Wales is affected at a time when the 20,000 increase in officers is projected to lead to hundreds of thousands of more arrests. Rural areas like Katy's patch are particularly hard hit because of the distances between locations.

Lubna Shuja, president of the Law Society, says members are reporting cases where the police have had to bail or release a suspect from custody because no duty solicitor could make it to an interview. Every case delayed is not just delayed justice for a suspect - but also, potentially, a victim.

"This could be somebody who has potentially committed a very, very serious crime," she says. "We have explained to the government very, very clearly what is happening.

"If this government wants to be a government which is interested in law and order, it needs to take this seriously and do something about it."

A Ministry of Justice spokesperson said that it has put an extra £85m into the legal aid budget for solicitors, with a 15% increase in fees following an independent review.

It says duty solicitors at police stations are getting the biggest rises - but the Law Society disputes all these figures and is trying to take the dispute to court - saying the sums don't come close to what's needed to attract people back to criminal work.

Back in Wales, Katy ends up spending two hours getting to Aberystwyth to advise the client in the cells. "If you're on a day like today, where you're stretched across multiple courts and multiple police stations, there are times where they [the police] have to wait," she says.

"Ultimately any delay is going to delay police officers. I'm aware of situations where they haven't been able to find solicitors."

As the evening draws close, Katy has been working nine hours - but has only been able to advise three clients because of the time spent driving. How does she sell this life to newly qualified lawyers?

"Ultimately, it's not sustainable. Those of us that are doing it, care very passionately about it. But unless there are more people coming into the profession, it's difficult to know what's going to happen."