Custody time limits: the total pre-trial custody clock

Purpose, legal source and the unit being measured

A custody time limitGlossary termCustody time limit, usually shortened to CTL, limits how long a defendant may be held before the relevant trial stage unless a court lawfully extends the limit. Its principal sources are Prosecution of Offences Act 1985 s 22 and the Prosecution of Offences (Custody Time Limits) Regulations 1987, as amended. A CTL is not a deadline for completing every part of the prosecution, and expiry is not an acquittal.

The record must be defendant-specific and charge-specific. Co-defendants arrested or remanded on different dates can have different limits. Different charges against one person can also have different expiry dates. Bail on one charge does not require physical release if another lawful basis for detention remains. Conversely, custody on another matter does not justify ignoring a running CTL on a charge for which the defendant is also remanded.

The ordinary starting event is a court remand in custody, not the police arrest, police detention authorisation, charging decision or first interview. Section 22’s definition of custody includes the relevant local-authority and youth-detention remands, but the lawfulness of the accommodation and the child’s remand conditions require the youth chapter. Do not assume that a remand outside an adult prison is necessarily outside the CTL scheme.

Choose the correct period before calculating the date

These are the ordinary current periods, not the temporary pandemic extended periods. Under s 22(6B), time during which proceedings are adjourned pending a prosecution appeal under Part 9 of the Criminal Justice Act 2003 is disregarded for the relevant CTL; record the actual adjournment and appeal, not merely an intention to challenge a ruling. The Regulations also exclude treason from the relevant ordinary trial provisions. An unusual statutory route, a historic transitional case or a different proceeding requires its own provision; do not choose a familiar number merely because the defendant is in custody.

Sending transfers an untried case to the Crown Court. A voluntary bill is a specialist route by which an indictment is preferred with the required judicial permission rather than simply following the ordinary sending route. A retrial on a fresh indictment after the relevant appellate order is not the same as a jury being discharged in an already started trial. The appeals and indictment chapters explain those gateways; the bail solicitor still needs the correct event and deduction to calculate custody.

For the 112-day route, do not ignore regulation 5(6C): a bill following an earlier sending which adds no new charge can be constrained by the residual ordinary period and prescribed deductions. For an added Crown Court count, regulation 5(6D) prevents a simple assumption that a fresh label supplies a new full 182 days. In a magistrates’ case a genuinely different charge may require its own starting calculation, but a substituted or amended allegation must be examined against the actual statutory scheme. Record the old and new allegations, first remands, sending and preferment; do not calculate from the new document’s date alone.

Counting: original day, release day and re-remand day

Under regulation 2(4), exclude the day custody begins for the relevant calculation. The following calendar day is the first counted day. Within a continuing ordinary custody period, count weekends and holidays; the separate end-date adjustment is considered afterwards.

When the defendant is actually released on bail in relation to the charge, the balance ordinarily stops running during that bail interval. The day of release counts as a whole custody day. On a later re-remand the day of re-remand counts: the exclusion of the original first day is not repeated every time bail is revoked. These operational whole-day conventions are explained in the current CPS CTL guidance and must be used consistently with the Regulations. Do not convert an hour of release into a new statutory allowance or count days when the defendant is actually on bail as custody.

A grant of conditional bail is not necessarily actual release. If the defendant is still held on this charge while a surety, deposit, residence or monitoring arrangement is completed, the CTL continues. Obtain the release record, not just the hearing order. Where the defendant also serves a sentence or is detained on another charge, identify separately whether custody on this charge continues; physical prison presence alone cannot answer the charge-specific question.

Ordinary bail before expiry usually leaves an unused balance which can resume. Release in consequence of CTL expiry has a different statutory consequence if the defendant later absconds or is arrested for a condition breach; section 8 explains that distinction. Do not apply the ordinary “pause and resume” model indiscriminately to every release.

What stops the pre-trial clock?

Under s 22(11A)–(11B), an ordinary summary trial starts when the court begins to hear prosecution evidence or accepts a guilty plea. The summary rule also covers beginning to consider the hospital-order power under Mental Health Act 1983 s 37(3). An ordinary jury trial starts when the jury is sworn; an accepted guilty plea also ends the relevant pre-trial stage. A not-guilty plea, an administrative hearing, fixing a trial date, the arrival of a jury panel or a plea and trial preparation hearing is not, by itself, the start of trial.

A guilty plea offered to a different or lesser charge which the prosecution does not accept does not necessarily stop the clock on the outstanding charge. Identify the offence to which guilt has actually been accepted. Once a guilty plea has been accepted for the relevant offence, a later disputed-facts sentencing hearing is not a continuation of that ordinary pre-trial CTL. The sentence and bail/remand powers remain relevant, but the clock has changed legal purpose.

There are specialist statutory start rules. A genuine preparatory hearing ordered under Criminal Justice Act 1987 s 8 or Criminal Procedure and Investigations Act 1996 (CPIA) s 30 can constitute the start of trial, and a lawfully ordered judge-only trial has its own corresponding start point. Those procedures must actually apply; relabelling ordinary case management a “preparatory hearing” does not stop the clock. Fitness-to-plead and trial-of-the-facts situations likewise require the applicable statutory event, not an assumption that any preliminary judicial ruling has ended the limit.

If a jury has been sworn and the trial is then aborted, the fact that another trial must be arranged does not automatically create another fresh 182-day CTL. The court must still consider bail, the remaining lawful custody powers and the requirement of a reasonably prompt retrial. Contrast that with a fresh-indictment appellate retrial which falls within the specific 112-day scheme.

End-date adjustment: move earlier, not later

Under regulation 2(5), where the calculated expiry falls on a Saturday, Sunday, Christmas Day, Good Friday or bank holiday, the limit ends on the next preceding normal day. This moves the effective expiry backwards, not to the next working day. The adjusted limit expires at midnight at the end of that date, unless trial has started or a valid extension or other statutory rule applies.

There is no general five-day working week for the running CTL. Count calendar days first, then apply the end-date adjustment. An intervening bank holiday is not deducted from every ordinary custody period merely because it would affect a business-day service period.

Authorities: Prosecution of Offences Act 1985, s 22; 1987 Regulations, reg 4, reg 5 and reg 2 in the original instrument; CPS CTL guidance, calculation and trial-start practice; England and Wales bank holidays.