For years, victims of crime and those trying to challenge convictions have said that the UK’s system for accessing court records is prohibitively expensive and unnecessarily bureaucratic.

The government has taken steps to improve this transparency. In a recent investigation, I revealed that the government has abandoned its policy of destroying court records. But significant barriers remain for those trying to gain access to those records.

Now, the government has unveiled a plan to use artificial intelligence (AI) to make court transcriptions cheaper and more accessible.

The Ministry of Justice will run a trial using its in-house AI, called Justice Transcribe, to produce court transcriptions. The pilot study, overseen by the courts and tribunals service, will assess how accurate the AI transcriptions are before the system is potentially rolled out nationwide.

Read more: Government has halted controversial policy of destroying court records, investigation reveals

A campaign led by survivors of rape and sexual assault has highlighted the difficulty of getting transcriptions of their trials. London’s Victims’ Commissioner Claire Waxman called it a “real block to recovery” for victims, and said one woman had been quoted £30,000 for a transcript of her full trial.

In 2012 the MoJ dispensed with stenographers and began recording court cases instead. But these audio recordings need to be........

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