THE number of cases being sent to court in Bolton fell last year.

Overall, local courts dealt with nine per cent fewer cases. The figures have been revealed in the annual report of the Bolton and Wigan branch of the Crown Prosecution Service.

But despite the overall fall in the amount of defendants being brought before the magistrates, the number of cases on very serious charges remained almost exactly the same.

Nearly 43 per cent of all cases at magistrates were on charges that had to be sent to Crown Court, or cases where the defendant could choose to be dealt with at magistrates or tried before a jury. Virtually all proceedings fully heard before magistrates resulted in a successful conviction. Only 1.3 per cent of cases were dismissed.

At Crown Court almost 93 per cent of cases resulted in a conviction. Most of these - 84.4 per cent - were guilty pleas and did not need a trial by jury.

The report is the first compiled since the Bolton and Wigan branches merged.

Branch Crown Prosecutor Michael McNeill said there had been some difficulties bringing the two branches together, but the high conviction rate showed no quality of service had been lost during the merger.

He said: "We look forward to building on this year's experience and we shall do our best to improve our performance every year."

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