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Hundreds of criminals in London — including suspected rapists — are escaping justice because of failings by prosecutors, inspectors warned today.
Too many cases were collapsing be-cause of poor preparation and other flaws, said Stephen Wooler, Chief Inspector of the Crown Prosecution Service. Suspects charged with race hate crimes and domestic violence were also wrongly avoiding conviction.
Mr Wooler told the Evening Standard: “It could be several hundred [cases in total]. You are looking at a significant number. Cases are not being prepared for court hearings as thoroughly as they might be and that is drawing criticism from judges and magistrates.
“There is a lot of last-minute work being done two or three days before a trial and consequently you are not putting up the best case and you are failing. That is the pattern.”
London's crown court conviction rate stands at 72.7 per cent compared to the national average of 80.6 per cent.
Mr Wooler's warning follows an investigation by inspectors into CPS performance in nine boroughs. It found that in Hackney, Greenwich, Lewisham and Tower Hamlets standards were “poor”, with the five others rated as only “fair” and none “good” or “excellent”.
The worst problems were with preparation of cases at crown and magistrates' courts. Trials often ended in failure because of last-minute decisionmaking, even though a guilty verdict should have been possible.
Some rape prosecutions were abandoned or downgraded to a lesser charge without sufficient scrutiny. On some occasions prosecutors failed to offer enough help to witnesses.
Mr Wooler said prosecutors had tried to pay particular attention to rape, domestic violence and hate crime, and in some areas had improved their effectiveness. But often the overall performance in such cases still unacceptably poor.
He added: “They are prepared better than the run-of-the-mill cases, but they are still not being prepared to the standard that we would expect for cases of this sensitivity and difficulty.”
Prosecutors in each borough were also graded on particular elements of their performance. In Lewisham, inspectors found rape cases were being dealt with by non-specialists, contrary to CPS guidance, and a racially aggravated charge had been downgraded even though all witnesses were in court and willing to testify.
The handling of rape cases in Redbridge was criticised as inconsistent. In Tower Hamlets the success rate for prosecuting violence against women cases was 58.8 per cent compared to the national figure of 71.9 per cent.
Alison Saunders, Chief Crown Prosecutor at CPS London, said: “Our new senior management team are determined to improve the service we provide to victims and witnesses.”
Trials and tribulations of the CPS
The biggest scandal to hit the Crown Prosecution Service in recent years is the collapse of the £60 million Jubilee line fraud trial.
The defendants walked free from the Old Bailey after the judge finally lost patience with a case which had lasted 18 months without even concluding the prosecution case.
Several of the long suffering jurors contacted the media to demand an inquiry and changes at the CPS to ensure such a mockery of justice should not be repeated.
Judge Ann Goddard stopped the case, which was also struck by sickness and jury problems, and discharged the six defendants.
Attorney General Lord Goldsmith, QC, said the failure of the case caused him “considerable disquiet.”
In 2005 Judge David Higgins threw out another fraud and corruption case costing £10 million because of more CPS blunders.
The trial involved the Prudential scandal in which the Pru and other financial institutions were found to have mis-sold many thousands of personal pensions.
But the judge returned not guilty verdicts on five defendants at Southwark crown court because they could not receive a fair trial.
He said the prosecution had persistently failed to disclose vital documents to the defence and had also failed to prevent a large number of documents crucial to the case from being destroyed.
In 2008 Judge David Paget attacked a CPS worker as “an illiterate idiot” when an Old Bailey trial was held up because of spelling mistakes on the indictment.
Reader views (3)
Funny how the many needless speeding cases never seem to collapse. When it comes to them, the CPS are s**t-hot and will do anything and everything, no matter how underhand, to bully their way to a conviction even when the motorist obviously isn't guilty. There's even a specialist "Dream Team" which heroically ensures that motorists are intimidated into not exercising their legal right to defend themselves: the message is that "If you're in court for speeding then of course you're guilty and if you try to wriggle out of it then we'll charge exorbitant costs for our biased 'expert witnesses'" ("expert witnesses" are frequently camera manufacturers who are wheeled out to explain how wonderfully accurate their infernal machines are...no vested interest there then!)
Thank goodness the CPS are protecting us by letting real criminals escape justice while ensuring that anyone guilty of the heinous crime of driving is pursued to the ends of the Earth. (All regular drivers speed after all, even the sanctimonious unhelpful ones who claim otherwise.) The CPS has become a tool of the PC brigade: protect the poor little criminal "victims" while harrassing car drivers for not using public transport. It's a disgrace that real justice and consideration of the public interest simply doesn't feature anymore. The legal system is yet another once-great institution which has been trashed under useless Labour.
- David Trent, West London, UK, 25/03/2010 11:52
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Don`t put all the blame on CPS. The police must share their part of this scandal. Many don`t know their powers, what points are required to be proved etc. The ability to take a comprehensive statement of evidence from witnesses and investigative skills are sorely lacking on too many occasions. If its not on CCTV or proved by DNA, officers seemed lost as to what to do next. Like a lot of things, we need to get back to basics and far better supervision. Supervisors should not be afraid of returning work that is not up to scratch, that`s the only way to learn.
- Brian G, Norfolk Gorleston, 08/02/2010 14:52
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The problem is that the CPS hasn't been fit for purpose for years, and is simply a disgrace to the Crown; the Queen should step in and demand higher standards.
As it is, the 'C' in CPS should actually be another word beginning with a 'C', and 4 letters long, that is, apart from its other name of Criminal Protection Service.
So what are you going to do about it Goldsmith? Clown? Straw? Starmer?
And the conviction rate is actually a misleading statistic to make the CPS look better than what it is: what is its success rate regarding ALL cases referred to it, which of course includes cases dropped simply due to gross incompetence and low quality of staff.
To be fair, some of the cases can be very complicated, requiring specialist knowledge which is unavailable to the CPS because it can't attract that calibre of employee on the salaries it offers, so it migh be best for justice if their remuneration were doubled, at least, but also dependent on results.
Oh, and so called hate crime laws should be abolished.
- Ralph, London, 08/02/2010 13:23
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