A JUDGE has hit out at private companies for delays in transporting prisoners to Worcester Crown Court.

Judge David McEvoy QC said it was "lamentable" that a defendant in a rape trial was several hours late in arriving and the jury had been kept waiting.

Another defendant, a woman on an arson charge, had also not been brought from Brockhill prison, near Redditch.

The judge called a senior officer from the Premier delivery service into court to explain the delays.

The officer said that 67 prisoners had been taken from Winson Green prison, Birmingham, that day and had to be delivered to various courts.

The judge said he appreciated the officer was not responsible but the waste of court time was a matter of great public concern.

Prisons were overcrowded but the late arrival of defendants "threw a spanner in the works" as far as courts were concerned.