A woman who reported her ex-partner to police for committing grievous bodily harm against her is having to wait nine years for a trial, with a key witness dying and investigating officers retiring before it reached court, the Daily Mail can reveal.
Becky Sheeran, 37, from Nottingham, is among thousands experiencing ‘unacceptable’ delays in the court system, leaving her waiting almost a decade before facing her alleged attacker in court.
Ms Sheeran first contacted police with allegations against her ex-partner in 2019.
Following an investigation, restauranteur David Perkins, 46, was charged with inflicting grievous bodily harm against her at a five-star hotel in London.
But far from provide a measure of relief for Ms Sheeran, she told the Daily Mail how delay after delay in the justice system has had a devastating impact on her and her family.
She has faced such a long hold-up for justice that her mother, a crucial witness in the case, has died while awaiting the trial.
Candidly speaking about how it has impacted her mental health, Ms Sheeran said she has considered ‘giving up’ on the case and fears the length of time crime victims currently face in limbo means they will no longer report crimes or may even take their own lives.
The business owner had already faced a six-year wait for a court date when the trial was initially scheduled for September 2025.
Becky Sheeran, 37, from Nottingham, first contacted police with allegations against her ex-partner in 2019
The businesswoman (right) has faced an ‘unacceptable’ delay of nine years for a court date, with her mother Gill (left), a key witness in the case, sadly dying before she could give evidence against her daughter’s attacker
She was then informed last year that the date had been pushed back by three months to December 2025.
But when Ms Sheeran, her family and the police officer in charge of her case arrived in Birmingham last month, it failed to make it to a courtroom.
The case has now been pushed back again by more than two years and is next due to go to court in 2028.
The nine-year wait for a trial has meant that a key witness in the case, Ms Sheeran’s mother Gill, has sadly passed away before her evidence could be used in a court of law.
The initial delay from September 2025 saw Ms Sheeran’s case was allocated as a ‘float trial’ in December, meaning it should have been heard as soon as a gap in a courtroom’s schedule appeared, but had not been pre-allocated an allotted time and judge.
Ms Sheeran said she was told it was ‘guaranteed’ that the case would be called.
‘The CPS and the courts knew the trial had already been delayed,’ she said. ‘They’d promised us that we would be at trial, because it had already been so many years.
‘And then we just didn’t get allocated a courtroom. There were too many people. Too many cases.
Restauranteur David Perkins, 46, was charged with inflicting grievous bodily harm against his ex at a five-star hotel in London
Ms Sheeran considered pulling out of the court case when she was told the next available trial date wasn’t until 2028
‘It was chaos. I think there were six trials that day that were floated. Some of them were rape trials that had also been delayed, and this was the victim’s second time of going through this.
‘You’re at the bottom of the pile. That’s what the police said to me [at court]. They said we’re at the bottom of the pile. It was horrendous.’
Because there were too many cases on the day, Ms Sheeran was then given a new court date – in 2028.
She says she was told there is currently no guarantee the trial will even happen as scheduled on March 27 of that year. And to make matters worse, the police officer in charge of her case is due to retire next October.
Ms Sheeran described how the officer sat with her and said: ‘This is the system, it’s just broken.’
She was left so upset by the delay that she told the Daily Mail she considered pulling out of the case altogether.
‘I completely lost all my fight. I just lost it. And you feel so deflated.’
The businesswoman said there was ‘no support’ for her after the court date.
Ms Sheeran told the Daily Mail that by the time of the trial she will have lost vital support including her mother Gill, and the police officer who investigated the case, who is due to retire
‘I didn’t have any support in terms of witness care. No one there with me. There was no team afterwards to say, how do you feel? Are you okay? What does this mean? We can help. Nothing apart from the police officer.’
Ms Sheeran said she may never have reported the incident to the police if she had known how long she would have to wait.
‘I have to live with the stress and worry and anxiety, and you just, you know, you relive that,’ she said.
‘It’s like it’s happening all over again, that pain, because you’re reliving it each year, each interview, each date that something comes up.
‘You’re just stuck in time, and you can’t move past it. It’s so hard that it will have been almost 10 years of my life.
‘And if I’d known that, I don’t know if I would have gone to the police.
‘I don’t know if I could have had the strength at the time, to know that I would have 10 years of my life going through this.’
She continued: ‘Everybody in the UK has a right to a fair trial within a reasonable time. Nine years is not a reasonable time. There’s a lot of talk about getting rid of juries to try and speed things up, but whatever decision is made, things have to change.
‘The mental health impact of this is so severe, and it’s not talked about. You’re going to have people committing suicide, you’re going to have people not reporting crimes.’
Ms Sheeran said it was only due to her supportive family members that she felt able to continue to wait for justice.
‘I would be pulling out now if I didn’t have that support, and the reality is, a lot of people don’t. They don’t have any family, or they don’t have friends around them to help them.
‘If I didn’t have my family, I would be pulling out now, I’d give up.’
In a bid to raise awareness of the severity of the backlog faced by victims of crime, Ms Sheeran has written to her MP and says she wants to see urgent action from government.
‘If we don’t speak up, particularly as women, we will never see change. And as uncomfortable as it is for me, I desperately want change for other people that are going to go through what I’m going through,’ she said.
There are currently just shy of 80,000 criminal cases awaiting trial, with this estimated to rise to 100,000 by 2028.
Many victims whose cases result in a charge today will realistically not see trial until 2030.
The government has pledged to take measures to tackle the issue, including its recently announced proposal to slash the number of jury trials by restricting these to the most serious crimes such as rape and murder.
A Ministry of Justice spokesperson said: ‘The Government inherited a justice system in crisis and the record court backlog means victims are waiting too long for justice.
‘That is why we recently announced major reforms to modernise the criminal courts and cut delays. The changes will mean victims are put front and centre of the court system and will see their perpetrator in the docks sooner.’
A Crown Prosecution Service spokesperson said: ‘We recognise the devastating impact of delays which is why we are working hard to deliver swifter justice and increase the support available to victims – including employing dedicated Victim Liaison Officers in every part of the country.’
