(not satire – it’s the UK today)
Three years ago, an unqualified court interpreter was jailed for working without qualifications and for not being registered with the profession’s professional body the National Register of Public Service Interpreters (NRPSI):
Since then the coalition government has outsourced the court interpreting services – in what has been described as a disastrous privatisation.
But now a National Audit Office report states as many as 10% of court interpreters provided by CAPITA – the private contractor – are unqualified and not registered with the NRPSI.
I’m not a legal expert – but surely that means 10% of CAPITA’s staff should be facing jail time?
Unless of course in the UK there’s now one law for state employees – and another for private companies providing newly privatised services?
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Here’s a press release from the NRPSI about the use of unqualified interpreters:
Increased use of unqualified interpreters will backfire
And you can read more about the whole sorry saga of the privatisation of court interpreting in these two previous blog posts:
How Delboy hoodwinked ministers out of £300m – UPDATE
Meet the activists standing up to government bullying and privatisation. Court interpreters!
Thanks especially to Linguist Lounge for the information on this:
British Justice. Whatever happened to it?
And for regular updates on the court interpreting fiasco, you should follow @Dutch_interpret on Twitter.
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Please feel free to comment.
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Pride's Purge 
Reblogged this on Beastrabban’s Weblog and commented:
The use of unqualified interpreters in the courts by the privatised company was another issue highlighted by Private Eye. They were concerned about the miscarriages of justice this presented, as well as the extra costs and complications whenever a state service is privatised. This piece shows just how shoddy the newly privatised service is, and the double-standards adopted by the authorities so that they don’t have to prosecute Capita for its failings.
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Reblogged this on nearlydead.
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Reblogged this on glynismillward189.
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Reblogged this on Mentally Wealthy.
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Reblogged this on Political Pip Spit or Swallow its up to You and commented:
I don’t see why the state should pay for interpreters. If the accused doesn’t speak the language his/her solicitor does. This idea of interpreting everything is impractical, adds a huge bill to the taxpayer and is probably unworkable since there are 100s of languages in the UK now.
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Pippakin – It depends on whether you think somebody accused of a crime deserves to get a fair trial. I happen to think they do. Apparently you do not.
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I do think all accused should get a fair trial I also think its the responsibility of all immigrants who intend to settle in a country to make sure they know and are continuing to learn the language of whichever country they choose, no one forces them, to live in.
Its almost certainly true that most immigrants who go on trial in for eg the UK do speak English to some degree enough to get from home to work etc. The interpreter service is being abused, arguably most English speaking defendants don’t speak the legalese of the courts who interprets for them?
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…and would your silly opinion also apply to yourself if you were working temporarily (or on holiday) in a country where you couldn’t speak the language, and you were accused of a crime?
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Pippakin – what on earth makes you think it’s only the accused who need translators? Witnesses and victims do too and crime is an international business these days so statements and contact with police and authorities abroad also need translators.
Think beyond the knee-jerk prejudice.
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I think you’d find my ‘silly’ opinion is pretty much the norm in a lot of countries. FFS most of em probably don’t provide legal aid at all!
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I’m not being prejudiced! The courts are not the united nations all courts should expect to use the national language unless its a country like Canada or Ireland where there are two in which case obviously both are used.
Many countries don’t provide legal aid let alone interpreters. The British govt are trying to cut the money spent on legal aid which would be fine if they cut lawyers payments but they won’t do that they will cut services and imo cutting interpreters would be preferable to the kind of legal team to which a defendant is entitled.
Everything is connected there are communities where women are discouraged from learning English in theory interpreters for the courts has nothing to do with that but in practice it encourages a lazy attitude to the English language and gives those who refuse to allow women to learn English the opportunity to say they don’t need to learn it!
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Pippakin – trials will collapse if there are defendants, victims, witnesses, officials etc who can’t understand what’s going on. Criminals will go free – crimes will go unpunished because people like you are so precious about their language.
Imagine this – a tourist is raped while visiting London. You would allow her rapist to go free because she can’t speak English well enough to give a statement?
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Precious about the language? what like this taken from the Guardian: do you mean-
“The judge criticised the gang for failing to have learned enough English to follow the trial or sentencing, despite having lived in Britian for up to a decade. There had been court costs of up to £40,000 for interpreters.”
Peterborough gang jailed for sexual assaults Four men jailed for rapes and sexual assaults on five vulnerable girls in Cambridgeshire town
http://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2014/feb/20/peterborough-child-sex-gang-sentenced
have a read.
Interpreters should be an emergency service for people like the young tourist you describe it should not be an entire industry whose main purpose is to serve people who have lived in a country for years.
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Pippakin – OK so now we’re getting to the nitty-gritty.
As you say, we would need to have interpreters for victims. And what about witnesses? They’re not the bad guys. We may need interpreters for those too, won’t we? And what about contacts with foreign police and authorities? Obviously we need interpreters for those too.
You would only stop interpreters for those bad guys who are guilty of crimes. Fair enough.
Mind you, that means the accused ones who are found innocent would need to get interpreters too. Because after all they’re not the bad guys either. They’re innocent.
So now all we have to do is decide which of the defendants are guilty before the trial begins.
Think, Pippakin, think!
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Tom, such a nice name…
An emergency service is just that it needs to apply to whoever is in need of that help what interpreters should not be for is people who have been in a country for years and apparently found it easier to get by without learning the language, that’s not use its abuse.
What excuse does a young person have for not learning the language of the host country when they’ve lived in that country for so many years? What makes it more reprehensible in the Peterborough case is that each of the defendants managed to make themselves very well understood to their young victims. Actions speak louder than words eh. I don’t think so.
[I’ve got a great idea. We could give a written and oral language test to rape victims before she gives her police statement to help us decide if she is eligible to get an interpreter. I suggest a pass rate of 58% for grammatical accuracy and 63% for range of vocabulary. How about you?] – Tom
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So you want to make the UK like those countries, where people who can’t afford an interpreter can’t possibly get a fair trial? I was wrong – your opinion isn’t just silly, it means justice only for the rich and I couldn’t disagree with you more.
You didn’t answer my question…
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What the f*** does a “nice name” have to do with anything? That isn’t a rhetorical question… Tom is perhaps too polite to ask, but I expect you to answer.
So you think entitlement to a fair trial depends on how long the person has been in the country? Where would you put your cut-off from access to an interpreter? 3 months? 1 year? 5 years? Would you make the deadline dependent on availability of free English language courses, or the IQ, age, or mental health of the person concerned?
It isn’t difficult for sexual abuse to take place in ANY OR NO language, so what kind of warped point were you trying to make?
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I don’t give a monkeys what you expect.
Lack of an interpreter does not mean lack of a fair trial. It would not have made a difference to the Peterborough verdict just perhaps to the perverts understanding of it.
Your final paragraph did as anyone familiar with your MO would know leave out the all important grooming of the victims because there is no way they groomed such young girls in a language foreign to the girls.
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“Lack of an interpreter does not mean lack of a fair trial.”
Then maybe one day you might be accused of an offence in a country where you cannot understand the trial process and you cannot afford an interpreter. I think you would change your mind rather promptly!
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P.S. What the f*** does a “nice name” have to do with anything? You ‘forgot’ to answer!
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You’ve given nothing just spurted the usual extreme left wing drivel.
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“[I’ve got a great idea. We could give a written and oral language test to rape victims before she gives her police statement to help us decide if she is eligible to get an interpreter. I suggest a pass rate of 58% for grammatical accuracy and 63% for range of vocabulary. How about you?] – Tom”
Here’s a clue Tom the victims were underage girls groomed by the gang one had learning difficulties. There is no way they were groomed by men who didn’t speak the girls language and speak it well enough for it to be attractive to very young girls.
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I asked you some simple questions about your proposal and you didn’t answer them. However, I’ll ask them again and see if you can do a little better this time:
1) Do you think entitlement to a fair trial depends on how long the person has been in the country?
2) Where would you put your cut-off from access to an interpreter? 3 months? 1 year? 5 years?
3) Would you make the deadline dependent on availability of free English language courses, or the IQ, age, or mental health of the person concerned?
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I told you that lack of an interpreter does not mean lack of a fair trial tht’s all anyone needs to know there is no need for any of this silly cut off stuff
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Do you live in the real world??? What language does violence and the threat of violence speak? I GUARANTEE that a group of strong men who don’t speak a SINGLE word of your language could make you do ABSOLUTELY ANYTHING they want you to do.
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…then answer the questions! I would have NO problem with answering them, so why are you afraid to do so?
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P.S. What the f*** does a “nice name” have to do with anything? You ‘forgot’ to answer!
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Like one or two other family members, I have worked as a translator, That’s anything but a simple business. You need to develop a special awareness of even a single vowel or syllable, such an awareness as is known in German as Sprachgefuhl. A case not long ago was dismissed from court because the hired-out, cut price, ‘translator’ couldn’t distinguish ”Beat [his partner]’, from ‘Bit’ her. A single confused vowel was enough to have the case thrown out.
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Again with the sheer pig ignorance. The operative word is GROOMING.
Since I’m on the subject there is nothing whatsoever to prevent anyone from employing their own interpreter. I’m sure the judge in the Peterborough case would have been pleasantly surprised had the accused and guilty filth done so.
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“there is nothing whatsoever to prevent anyone from employing their own interpreter”
Except money! Are you REALLY too f*cking thick to see that if defendant, accused or witnesses can’t understand what’s going on then there WILL NOT be a fair trial??? How can anyone be as stupid as you seem to be???
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P.S. What the f*** does a “nice name” have to do with anything? You ‘forgot’ to answer!
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“there is nothing whatsoever to prevent anyone from employing their own interpreter”
Except money! Are you REALLY too f*cking thick to see that if defendant, accused or witnesses can’t understand what’s going on then there WILL NOT be a fair trial??? How can anyone be as stupid as you seem to be???
All the lack of an interpreter means is that the defendant/witness may not understand some of the evidence etc it will not mean that the jury/judge didn’t.
Its a really good idea to learn the language of the country you live in or visit isn’t it…
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Pippakin – I can tell you have never learned another language. It’s very difficult to learn a language to a level proficient enough to understand the intricacies of a court case.
You really think justice can be served when defendants can’t understand the accusations being made against them? Oh deary deary me …..
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“All the lack of an interpreter means is that the defendant/witness may not understand some of the evidence etc it will not mean that the jury/judge didn’t.”
What??? How the f*ck can anyone involved in a trial give or understand evidence if they can’t say anything and don’t know what is being said???
“Its a really good idea to learn the language of the country you live in or visit isn’t it…”
Either you are a complete moron or you’ve never even been on holiday outside the UK!!! How many languages can you understand? Your obvious gross stupidity proves that you would have trouble with English legal language, let alone any other!
Are you TRYING to prove yourself to be the most moronic person on this web site?
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Tom – You are WAY too polite!
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I can’t speak a foreign language. I’ve never left the UK. I’m a moron /stupid. All very common terms of abuse used by those who have no answer to the actual debate.
An interpreter doesn’t interpret the law s/he interprets language
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Yes, the debate is about your statement – “I don’t see why the state should pay for interpreters”
I have given you a number of reasons why the state should, but you seem unable to respond. If the reason is that you really are a moron/stupid then that’s perfectly OK, but I suggest that you try to do something about it. I think your best option is reading and thinking before writing……
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No you really haven’t. Your idea appears to be that the state should pay because it is the state and there are such things as miscarriages of justice. Miscarriage of justice happens. That’s not an answer the state doesn’t have to provide anything. The law is not lady bountiful. If you have chosen not to learn a language sufficiently to be able to follow proceedings that is your decision it doesn’t then become the responsibility of the state to compensate for your previous indifference.
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No, the idea (it wasn’t mine) is that the state should pay for interpreters so that trials should be fair to all – accused, victims and witnesses. If there’s something about that which you don’t understand then you could always try asking a question. It appears that you have a pathological aversion to asking or answering questions! Have you always had that problem?
I’ll try asking you the same questions again and see if you can do a little better this time:
1) Do you think entitlement to a fair trial depends on how long the person has been in the country?
2) Where would you put your cut-off from access to an interpreter? 3 months? 1 year? 5 years?
3) Would you make the deadline dependent on availability of free English language courses, or the IQ, age, or mental health of the person concerned?
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P.S. Once again – what the f*** does a “nice name” have to do with anything? You ‘forgot’ to answer!
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I repeat: there is no prohibition to interpreters it should be the choice of those involved, if they feel they need one there should be nothing to prevent them employing one its their choice – and their money. I don’t think its unreasonable to assume that anyone who has lived in a country for years needs an interpreter.if they do they should employ an interpreter for themselves.
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“I don’t think its unreasonable to assume that anyone who has lived in a country for years needs an interpreter.if they do they should employ an interpreter for themselves.”
… So I repeat question 2) for the THIRD time!
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P.S. YET AGAIN – what the f*** does a “nice name” have to do with anything? You ‘forgot’ to answer!
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The answer is in my every reply! Interpreters do not interpret law they interpret language so they are not essential for a fair trial.
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Yes, we all already what an interpreter does! Now will you answer the questions…?
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@pippakin: See this EU Directive: http://ec.europa.eu/justice/criminal/criminal-rights/right-translation/index_en.htm It gives everybody the right to interpreting and translation services throughout the entire process if accused of a criminal offence, in every EU member state. Free of charge.
For the record, interpreting pertains to the spoken word; translation pertains to written language. They are not interchangeable.
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Hi Pippakin – I’ve had a read of a couple of your comments and one was that “other countries don’t even provide legal aid”. Well – it isn’t a race to the bottom. There are plenty of other countries that don’t do various things that we do, others that have draconian practices that we don’t indulge in here in the UK. It isn’t an excuse.
We had a system that was approaching something that other countries could only aspire to having and it needed to be tweaked, improved, fine-tuned but instead our government decided that slashing rates and diluting levels of required qualifications was the right way forward and it has failed miserably.
The fact that other countries do something a certain way is not an adequate excuse to demolish something that was a sign of our advancement as a nation.
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Although I could response to a number of your comments, the one about the levels of English of some migrants is a very interesting one and it should be addressed from experience, my own experience, that comes from somewhere between 2500-3000 hours of public service interpreting.
Having a level of English that gets someone to/from work is NOT enough to leave someone alone in a court or police situation without an interpreter and there is one particular example in just one language alone, Portuguese, that should explain why it is not good enough that someone, because they can get to/from work and order breakfast or chat niceties to workmates, is left without a safety net in a legal situation.
It is the words ‘push’ and ‘pull’. The word ‘pull’ in Portuguese is ‘puxar’ and it sounds scarily similar to the word ‘push’. The word ‘push’ is ’empurrar’. On at least two occasions – and I can talk about this without my breaching duty of confidentiality because the two examples took place publicly in open court – Portuguese speakers who did have English that you could describe as decent enough used the word ‘push’ in situations where they had the word ‘pull’ in their mind.
As the interpreter deployed to interpret for them if they did receive orders to speak entirely in their own language, one of the skills you develop is that in the context of what someone is talking about, without in any way influencing what they say, you are there to spot something like this. The two defendants in the two cases (one was a witness in a murder trial, the other the defendant in an assault trial) both said they had ‘pushed’ someone where in context of everything said in their evidence, it was quite clear they were talking about them PULLING someone. The exact situation doesn’t need to be explained. It is because, when asked to say the same thing in their own language, they did indeed say “PUXAR” and that is PULL, not PUSH.
But when in a court situation, people sometimes don’t think clearly and if they make a mistake that is based on sheer lack of clear memory, inconsistency or some other error, they’re in the same position as anyone else who for their own reasons, freezes when they give evidence and don’t give the account they would have wished. But when someone is clearly your ideal type of migrant, the one who tries their best and is attempting to make a go of it in English, and they mix up two words as vital as that, it can really lead somewhere very bad indeed. It may not even be themselves that suffers, it can easily be someone else.
In fact, how would we even assess someone’s capacity to get by without an interpreter in the first place? Some major risk assessment would need to take place and I doubt the cost of that would be much different to just having one blanket policy – as we do at present – to provide an interpreter as a matter of course. It isn’t what the interpreter does, necessarily, it’s often what the interpreter’s absence risks.
In various ways, in the finer detail of the way violent situations are picked to the last detail in their own individual contexts in court trials, the difference between someone being guilty or not guilty – or indeed the difference between their level of guilt in some situations where there are different levels of offence – the person who speaks some English, but not a lot, can actually be at more risk than someone who is entirely in the hands of the interpreter’s skills and experience. That one mistake, that they’re thinking “Pull” but they say “Push” – can be vital. That’s just one example.
Imagine an altercation on a train platform that starts as banter between two people or a minor misunderstanding but develops into something more than either party intended and someone goes onto the tracks and is electrocuted – it could well be that someone, in drink, teeters and topples and the person who hit them may be in the middle of a situation with them but may well not have any intention of actually killing them – and seeing they’re teetering, they try and grab their clothes to PULL them to safety, despite them fighting, and they fail. A witness to this – and independent witness – could be in court trying to explain that they saw the person PULL the other but accidentally say they pushed them. That could be two people, defendant and (dead) victim and the best-placed person to give an independent account could be a Portuguese or Brazilian tourist.
Oh, and incidentally, in addition to the language aspect of the scenario I’ve described, if a visitor to the UK is asked to give evidence in a trial, why on earth should they pay for our public services to bring them to court to assist?
That’s why the entire premise of just about everything you’ve said doesn’t stand up to scrutiny, is impractical in reality and comes from a place of emotion rather than experience.
The central person of importance to you, at the centre of all this, doesn’t appear to be the witness/victim/defendant at all, or the other stakeholders in a legal process. What seems to matter most to you is this shadowy and mysterious figure: The Taxpayer.
I’d like it if you could get some figures on the taxes paid by migrants and compare it to the estimated expenditure on interpreting services, and then also consider the cost of public services that aren’t used by migrants who later return to their own countries and don’t use many of the services they paid NI for during their working lives here. I’d bet, if you did get some figures, it’d balance out and the expenditure on language services would far outweigh the money saved from them getting off home and not claiming state pensions they’d eventually have a right to if they did stay.
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Marc – absolutely right. Most people who think interpreters aren’t necessary are people who have never learnt another language and don’t understand the first thing about the whole process.
I can speak Polish at about intermediate level – which means I can sound pretty fluent to someone when chatting but not in more demanding situations. I’d be absolutely lost if I had to use it in a court or making legal statements.
Polish/Englsh speakers often have a problem with the word ‘nervous’ for example which sounds similar to ‘nerwowy’ in Polish – which means something more like ‘angry’.
If you hit the back of someone’s car and a tough gangster-type got out and started heading for you – in English you’d be the one who was nervous.
In Polish, it would be the gangster.
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Trawling through the mountain of poorly informed comment from you, Pippy, I’ve found two other absolute gems:
“Interpreters should be an emergency service for people like the young tourist you describe it should not be an entire industry whose main purpose is to serve people who have lived in a country for years.”
We don’t serve those people. We are not deployed to serve them – to be partial to their needs – we serve the case. We are interpreting not ‘for’ them but ‘with’ them. The acid test is again, a mistake in saying ‘push’ when they mean ‘pull’ may not prejudice Mr Portuguese Witness but it could land Mr British Defendant in prison. We are not there to do anything more or less than ensure someone is neither at any natural advantage or disadvantage.
“Interpreters interpret language, not the law”.
No, we do both. Where a barrister needs to explain a point of law, so that a defendant knows the risks of running a trial, where there is not a clear-cut and decent chance of acquittal if they do, the barrister at crown court level explains the way the law works, the way the trial will – pardon the use – interpret the indictment and the defence around the legal directions given by the judge for their deliberations and indeed the chances of success in the barrister’s opinion.
If you want a good example of saving taxpayers’ money, then you can find it where a barrister’s advice leads someone to make their own decision and plead guilty, avoiding a trial, not because they’re not guilty but because some or other point of law leads them not to believe they can successfully argue their case and be believed, which is what jury trial rests on in its simplest essence. So: that advice sometimes leads to a one-day hearing after all the preliminary hearings as opposed to the huge long trial where £40,000 of your/mine/immigrants’ tax money is spent – which incidentally was singled out by a judge in a move I view as highly mischievous playing to the gallery because it singled out one element of a court trial that by its very nature features various skilled professionals who cost a bomb to employ. Shall we maybe single out what the barristers cost and do away with them?
Ah … news just in … it looks like we are about to do just that, in a round-about way!
Hope you’re satisfied. I really do have a severe distaste for constantly passing people with your worldview as I am to see the world I live in reach high while you prefer to race to the bottom.
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In the Peterborough case it was the judge who complained I think he would know rather more than a couple of uppity bloggers.
A fair trial does not require an interpreter but if the barrister feels he can’t express himself properly to his client he can always pay for one himself its not as if he’s underpaid.
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Pippakin is DEFINITELY a massive TROLL. Nobody could possibly say, with a serious face, that if a barrister is struggling to be understood by a defendant or witness they should pay for it themselves because of what they earn. Total and utter Tory troll.
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Feeling starved of attention are you, or is that the site is missing the feminine touch…I never said there could be no interpreters I said they could not, except for exceptional circumstances, be part of the legal aid system. I’m sure any barrister worth his enormous fee could pay for interpreters from his petty cash if he thought they were essential to his client. You appear to be saying that I’m wrong and the judge in the case I quoted was wrong.
Anyone who has lived in a country for ten or more years should be able to speak and understand the language well enough to know what’s being said to them. If they don’t then except for exceptional circumstances that is their own fault. The system is being abused and needs correcting. Those nanny state people who think the govt should pay for everything should go and get a job, one that’s taxed and then their own understanding would improve.
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