A child sex case has been moved from Kingston to Swindon Crown Court in an effort to reduce London's backlog of court cases, according to the Evening Standard.

The newspaper reported that the move of two trials to Swindon and Winchester was understood to be 'a new step to beat the backlog' caused by pre-pandemic reduced judicial sitting days and limited court capacity due to coronavirus.

The Ministry of Justice said the two trials, which involved vulnerable victims, were high priority cases and that if they had not been transferred, they may have faced a significant delay.

A HM Courts and Tribunals Service spokesperson denied that this was part of a bigger plan to move cases out of the capital. They said: "There are no plans to do this on a larger scale."

"Two cases were recently moved out of London with the agreement of the judiciary and all parties involved."

The Adver reported in July that there were 227 cases waiting to heard at Swindon Crown Court at the end of March this year which was a 8% rise from March 2020.

These included 41 cases of alleged violent attacks and 24 alleged sex offences.

The data also showed that 59,500 crown court cases were outstanding across England and Wales at the end of March. London's backlog made up around a quarter of that number.

The MoJ added that cases may be moved between different courts for various reasons like the victim's convenience, for space in high profile cases, for security or to get a case heard sooner.

Penelope Gibbs, who runs Transform Justice, told the Standard: "Open justice is meaningless if a member of the public cannot watch a trial relevant to their area in a local court."

The MoJ stressed that open justice remained important throughout the pandemic and HM Courts and Tribunals Service had increased remote access to hearings for the media.