Victim of ‘Nappy Valley Muggers’ calls for watchdog to oversee CPS decisions

A VICTIM of a brutal gang of robbers dubbed the Nappy Valley Muggers has called for an independent body to oversee under-fire Crown prosecutors.

Barbara Cahalane and her sister Patricia were attacked by the gang which t a r ge t e d lone women, of t e n wit h babies, in affluent areas of south-west London. In 2012, three members were jailed for a tot al of more than 46 years.

Now Ms Cahalane, who criticised the Crown Prosecution Service for incompetence at the time, has renewed her attack, saying there was a “pattern of poor-quality decision making”.

Her plea follows a row over the CPS’s decision not to prosecute Lord Janner, the female genital mutilation trial fiasco and a U-turn over journalists charged with paying public officials for stories. Ms Cahalane has written to Parliament demanding: “I would like to know if you would support a fully independent oversight board for the CPS.”

Alison Saunders, the Director of Public Prosecutions, and the CPS answer to the Attorney General, who is responsible to Parliament.

The HM Crown Prosecution Inspectorate — a separately funded, independent body — inspects the CPS’s work, but Ms Cahalane believed it had “a rather limited audit function”.

She said: “No one expects the CPS to get every decision right. Life is not like that. But there is a concerning pattern of poor-quality decision making. My own direct experience of the CPS was hellish.

“Bet ween 2004 and 2009, three criminals, subsequently dubbed the N a p py Va l l e y Mug ge r s , v i o l e n t l y assaulted 18 women in Wandsworth, in some cases inflicting life-changing injuries. Some were assaulted in front of their children.

“In 2011, when Wandsworth police assembled evidence linking all these assaults, the CPS wanted to prosecute only on a small number of counts.

“We had to pressurise them into prosecuting all assaults and at all stages they were unhelpful and obfuscating at every turn. We succeeded eventually, but the whole process felt like being mugged a second time. This issue matters to the people who still live in Wandsworth.”

The sisters were attacked at 7am near Clapham Junction station in August 2008. Barbara, 56, is a director of corporate communications and Patricia, 61, was a local authority manager but stopped work after the assault left her in constant pain.

Christopher Byom was jailed for 21