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For several years now the Ministry of Justice has tried to claim that the rise in people representing themselves in Crown Court wasn't happening.
First, they tried to bury the evidence, rebutting FOIs for a report which included senior judges' testimony about the people that faced them alone. https://www.buzzfeed.com/emilydugan/the-government-tried-to-bury-this-research-showing-judges
The following week it transpired (after a leak to BuzzFeed News) that they had edited out almost all of the damning detail from the original, including judges saying defendants were like "rabbits in the headlights" https://www.buzzfeed.com/emilydugan/the-government-tried-to-conceal-this-testimony-from-judges
Since then they have continued to insist that people having to defend themselves in Crown Court trials wasn't an issue. The growing evidence was dismissed as not statistically significant.
I've yet to see what their response is to reports over the weekend that 7.7% of defendants at a first hearing last year did not have a lawyer. In 2010 the percentage was 4.9%.
This all comes back to a legal aid means test that hasn't been updated in nearly a decade. It means people on low incomes don't qualify for free legal representation when accused of crimes.
The result is people struggling in court on their own, or - as uncovered earlier this year - chased by bailiffs for legal aid contributions they cannot afford https://www.buzzfeed.com/emilydugan/moj-bailiff-company-legal-aid-payments
