Guidance

HMCTS Common Platform: view or manage a case

Common Platform allows the police, judiciary, solicitors, barristers and criminal justice agencies to access and edit case information.

Applies to England and Wales

If you are a defence professional you can use this service to:

link yourself to a case or defendant so the Legal Aid Agency is informed for payment purposes
self-serve case materials, including the initial details of the prosecution case (IDPC) and the pre-trial readiness form (PET form) in the magistrates’ court
serve documents on the court for magistrates’ Common Platform cases

If you are a member of the judiciary, HMCTS or a partner agency, you can use the service to view cases and take part in Common Platform hearings.

To use the service, you must have an account. If you are a defence professional, your firm or chambers must register you for your account.

We will verify your application and send you an approval email within 3 working days.

Once you have activated your account, you can start accessing case information in Common Platform.

See our guides on using Common Platform:

How to use Common Platform: for defence professionals on activating an account and using Common Platform to manage cases
Common Platform for defence administrators: creating user accounts, assigning roles and other admin functionality

If you are member of the judiciary, HMCTS or partner agency, refer to guidance on your intranet.

If you need help getting a unique reference number for a case, email ProfessionalContactCrime@justice.gov.uk or call 0330 808 4407.

If you need further help or have questions that are not addressed in the guidance, you can contact us on our technical helpdesk or by email.

Telephone – 0300 303 0688
Monday to Friday, 8am to 6pm (excluding public holidays)

We aim to respond within 5 working days.

Published 23 November 2021
Last updated 25 March 2022 + show all updates

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