Two High Court judges have criticised the withdrawal of services by solicitors after they were forced to adjourn trials and sentencing matters involving child complainants and serious sexual offending.Judge Paul McDermott was told a new trial date needed to be set for a sexual abuse case involving a child complainant. The court heard the solicitor in the case withdrew their services on the original trial date in June. The child complainant is in counselling.The trial had been otherwise ready to proceed, the court heard. McDermott set a new trial date for the autumn term, telling the court it would have to proceed on that day.“This is a child in counselling and services were withdrawn despite that,” he said. “It’s not going to happen on [the next trial date]. You can’t have a child in this position.”McDermott was also due to hear a sentencing matter for a man who admitted a number of historic sexual offences earlier this year, which have had “a significant effect” on the complainant.The complainant had prepared their victim impact statement and was due to travel to court for the sentence hearing on Tuesday but was advised the night before it would not be going ahead due to the withdrawal of services.[ Up to individual solicitors to decide whether to continue withdrawing services, Law Society president saysOpens in new window ]McDermott said, in his view, “you can’t withdraw from a criminal case” and that “best practice requires that a matter be brought to conclusion”.“I don’t see how a lawyer can withdraw from a case on the cusp of finalisation,” he said. “But what’s happened is that is the case. The solicitor hasn’t attended today and the matter can’t proceed.”He adjourned the sentence hearing to Friday.On Monday, Judge Tony Hunt was dealing with the Central Criminal Court list. At one point he described the situation as “intolerable” and said he was “biting my lip very hard” after a number of sexual assault cases on the list were affected.In one sexual assault case, which was listed for mention, counsel for the accused said he was instructed to bring an application to vary bail but was not otherwise instructed.Hunt commented that it seemed to be a case of “Schrödinger’s legal advisers” where solicitors were “present but not present at the same time”.“It seems to me to be a lot of nonsense,” he said. Having noted that the Director of Public Prosecutions was accepting the application to vary bail he remanded the defendant on continuing bail to October.