Guilty! CPS face crisis over toll of cases dropped
THOUSANDS of people had criminal cases against them dropped because of vital evidence being withheld by the prosecution, it has emerged, as the Crown Prosecution Service has admitted the true scale of its disclosure crisis.
CPS officials revealed there were 3,601 cases in the past five years in which defendants were charged with crimes only for them to be dropped as a result of disclosure issues.
The CPS has a duty to turn over to the defence all relevant evidence in a case, even if the material is not being used at the trial, but in hundreds of prosecutions it admits key information was held back for too long.
In 2018, 833 cases collapsed due to last-minute evidence emerging, including 22 men charged with sex offences.
The scandal of disclosure failings first made headlines in late 2017 when a spate of rape cases were dropped at the last minute when new evidence was handed to the defence.
Often the material included messages from a complainant to their alleged attacker or friends in which they admitted the encounter had been consensual.
These included the case of Samuel Armstrong, 25, an aide to Conservative MP Craig Mackinlay. He was cleared of raping a woman after evidence was handed over just before his trial.
The failings led to a series of Government, judicial and Parliamentary reviews of the disclosure process, which discovered it was a systemic problem across the criminal justice system.
Director of Public Prosecutions Alison Saunders stood down from her post as head of the CPS last October after five years in charge of the service. Before
her departure she was criticised by MPs on the Justice Select Committee, who said there was “insufficient focus and leadership” in dealing with the problem of disclosure in rape cases.
The second phase of a joint national disclosure improvement plan between the CPS and police is still underway.
David Spencer, research director at the Centre for Crime Prevention, said: “The CPS must be 100 per cent transparent in how they have reached their decision and evidence should be made available to all parties by default. It is clear they are failing in this far too often.
“This failure undermines both the judicial process and the public’s confidence in it and if the CPS cannot get their own house in order, it might be necessary for Government to step in and deliver the reforms.”
Max Hill, Mrs Saunders’ successor, claimed the situation was improving during an ongoing Justice Committee inquiry. He said: “We can read in those reviews just how well the CPS habitually carries out its disclosure function in significant and complex cases.”
A CPS spokesman said: “Disclosure is a vital part of every investigation and ensuring public trust in the system is a key priority for the CPS.
“Over the past year there has been unprecedented joint commitment from the CPS and police to bring about the necessary improvements and changes to the culture of getting disclosure right.”