Think of cost before bringing charges, CPS told
New guidance could have prevented Terry debacle
SUSPECTS may in future escape prosecution if lawyers calculate it would be too expensive to bring them to trial.
For the first time Crown prosecutors will be told to consider the cost of bringing home a conviction before they lay charges.
A guide produced by Director of Public Prosecutions Keir Starmer warns that there should be no criminal charges brought when a suspect is likely to face only a light or token punishment.
The new rule, which says that prosecutions should be proportionate, raises the prospect that junior gang members could be let off rather than brought into a complex trial alongside their criminal leaders.
It could also have been used by prose-
‘Assessment of the public interest’
cutors to avoid bringing Chelsea football captain John Terry to court.
Terry was cleared last week of racism over a confrontation on the pitch with Queens Park Rangers player Anton Ferdinand.
But since Terry could have faced a maximum punishment of a £2,500 fine, a prosecutor might have judged that the expense of bringing senior lawyers and large numbers of witnesses to court was too high to justify.
The introduction of the proportion test would be the first major change to the basis on which criminal charges are brought for nearly 90 years.
Until now, prosecutors have had to decide whether to bring criminal charges after making two basic decisions.
One is that the case has a better than even chance of resulting in a conviction, and the second is that a prosecution must be in the public interest. A consultation paper about the new code sent out yesterday said that under the new proportionate element of the code, prosecutors must consider ‘the cost to the prosecution service and the wider criminal justice system, especially where it could be regarded as excessive when weighed against any likely penalty’.
‘Cost is a relevant factor when making an overall assessment of the public interest.’
The new draft code added: ‘Cases should be capable of being prosecuted in a way that is consistent with principles of effective case management.
‘For example, in a case involving multiple offenders, prosecution might be reserved for the key participants in order to avoid excessively long and complex proceedings.’
The rewritten code – which is under consultation until the autumn – will also include new guidance on how the credibility of evidence should be assessed, a ‘streamlined’ approach to deciding whether a prosecution is in the public interest, and questions for prosecutors to consider about the seriousness of the offence, the culpability of the suspect, and the impact on victims.
Mr Starmer said: ‘Proportionality is about ensuring that we and the police are choosing the right cases to prosecute from the start, and doing so in the most effective way.
‘There may be cases – for example where a court might convict a defendant but decide not to record that conviction by giving an absolute discharge – where police officers or prosecutors might anticipate that a prosecution is not a proportionate way to approach the criminality.’