Legal System: Prosecutorial Policy

Lord Beecham Excerpts

Thursday 18th January 2018 Lords Chamber

[Lord Beecham (Lab)]

My Lords, I congratulate my noble and learned friend on securing this important and timely debate. Much is heard, and rightly so, of the needs of victims in our criminal justice system, exemplified dramatically in the past few weeks by the Worboys case. The distress occasioned by the apparent failure to prosecute more cases involving this offender and, arguably, the even more worrying failure to notify victims of the offender’s release from prison is palpable.

As the Motion makes clear, there are also significant issues affecting defendants, especially in relation to disclosure of evidence material to a prosecution, which need to be addressed, and there are also concerns about the process of decision-making on whether to prosecute. These issues, although they have come dramatically to the fore in the past few weeks, are not new.

Victim Support published a report last April which recounted failures to comply with the victims’ code. Of 19 requirements laid out in the code, three were not met in more than 50% of cases, including offering a chance to make a victim personal statement and having the consequences of such a process explained, while in no less than 62% of cases victims were not asked about their needs and assessed for an enhanced service. In only four categories did the failure in meeting entitlements fall below 20%, and many were in the range of 30% to 50%. Unsurprisingly victims were much more satisfied when they received all the code’s entitlements than otherwise. There is a clear systemic failure to meet the needs of victims in a range of material issues. The report concluded that more monitoring and enforcement of the victims’ code is required. Can the Minister confirm that these matters will be addressed in the new strategy for victims expected to be published soon?

Disclosure of unused material is another area of concern, as we have heard, which is reflected in the joint report by the Crown Prosecution Service Inspectorate and the Inspectorate of Constabulary last June. As the report pointed out, every item of unused evidence should be retained and reviewed to see whether it could undermine the prosecution or assist the defence and, if so, it should be disclosed. In practice, however, the process was described as,

“routinely poor, while revelation … to the prosecutor of material that may undermine the prosecution case or assist the defence case is rare”.

Sensitive material is not managed effectively, and prosecutors are not managing ongoing disclosure, with an audit process,

“far below any acceptable standard”.

The report concludes that the failure to provide timely disclosure leads to,

“chaotic scenes … outside the courtroom … unnecessary adjournments and … discontinued cases”,

which,

“reflect badly on the criminal justice system in the eyes of victims and witnesses”.

The report made nine recommendations, one for immediate action, six for implementation within six months, and one for implementation within 12 months. Will the Minister update us on progress in the past nine months?

While we are considering the question of resources, it is interesting to note that the Sunday Telegraph—not my usual paper of choice—reported on Christmas Eve that prosecutors were being urged two years ago to boost rape cases but that the CPS,

“found lawyers struggling with deadlines, pressing charges where there was scant chance of conviction”,

and that the service was underresourced, making it difficult to achieve quality casework. The telling headline to the Telegraph article was:

“We warned sex trials would suffer under workload, says CPS”.


The report was published last February. Will the Minister tell us what extra resources have been allocated to meet that difficult situation?

My noble friend Lady Chakrabarti last month referred to two recent cases in which inadequate disclosure of material led to acquittals, after much stress on the innocent defendants, and attributed this to the underfunding of an overstretched CPS and police service, although—one might have thought predictably—one Nick Timothy, the Conservative Party’s answer to Steve Bannon, denied that resourcing was an issue. In fairness, he at least welcomed the acquittal of the unfortunate Liam Allan after two years of police bail on a charge which ultimately fell apart. The Prime Minister’s statement that it is,

“important that we look at the issue again to ensure that we are truly providing justice”,—[Official Report, Commons, 20/12/17; col. 1062.]

was very welcome, but it needs to be followed through by an independent review of process and a commitment to ensure that adequate funding is available to train, employ and supervise the relevant staff in the police service and the prosecution service.

My noble and learned friend Lord Morris asked a Private Notice Question on the disclosure issue in December. The noble Lord, Lord Faulks, took the opportunity to ask whether there were,

“adequate resources, by way of legal aid or otherwise”,—[Official Report, 18/12/17; col. 1836.]

to enable defence lawyers to analyse all the pieces of relevant information, to which the Minister replied that that point would be addressed. It was surprising that no assurance on this critical point was proffered at the time. A month on, what is the position? This is surely an issue which could be addressed immediately.

One area on which the Government have appeared to take action is pre-trial cross-examination of victims, with the Attorney-General saying in November that he welcomed the further rollout of this practice. Will the Minister say what progress has been made in this area and what targets have been established for its adoption? It is to be hoped that change of this and other kinds will not be delayed because of resource implications, not least because it could actually save money if properly employed, as well as improving the substantive process and helping victims cope with the stress of reliving their experience.

This has been an interesting and well-informed debate. I hope that the Minister will be able to give some assurance that progress will be made sooner rather than later in tackling the variety of problems raised not only by your Lordships this afternoon but by other organisations to which I and other noble Lords have referred.