Questioner: Lord Knight of Weymouth (LAB - Life peer)
Question
To ask Her Majesty’s Government, further to the Written Answer by Lord Keen of Elie on 9 March (HL5640), whether the legal guidance for prosecutors concerning the Corporate Manslaughter and Corporate Homicide Act 2007, as set out on the Crown Prosecution Service’s website at 14 March, is current; and whether the Special Crime Unit in the Special Crime and Counter Terrorism Division, CPS Headquarters, continues to maintain an overview of corporate manslaughter cases, as set out in the penultimate paragraph of that advice.
Answered by Lord Keen of Elie
The Crown Prosecution Service’s publicly available legal guidance concerning corporate manslaughter accurately reflects the CPS’s policy on prosecuting for this offence. The guidance includes a requirement for cases to which the guidance may ultimately apply to be referred to the Special Crime Unit of the Special Crime and Counter Terrorism Division.
Questioner: Lord Knight of Weymouth (LAB - Life peer)
Question
To ask Her Majesty’s Government how many convictions (1) the Metropolitan Police Service, and (2) the Crown Prosecution Service, have secured for conveying prohibited items into prisons, since 1 January 2013.
Answered by Lord Keen of Elie
These types of offences investigated by the Metropolitan Police will be prosecuted by the Crown Prosecution Service (CPS).
Offences of conveying items into prison can be prosecuted under various pieces of legislation. Many are offences which are not specific to prisons and those which are can apply to circumstances where items are conveyed either into or out of prison. Specific offences of conveying prohibiting items into prison cannot therefore be identified from the CPS case management system without incurring disproportionate cost.
The official statistics relating to criminal court proceedings, including convictions, are maintained by the Ministry of Justice.
Questioner: Lord Knight of Weymouth (LAB - Life peer)
Question
To ask Her Majesty’s Government how many cases the Crown Prosecution Service currently has under active consideration under the Corporate Manslaughter and Corporate Homicide Act 2007 in respect of a death or deaths in custody.
Answered by Lord Keen of Elie
The Crown Prosecution Service is currently considering fewer than five cases in which a charge of corporate manslaughter is being considered in connection to a death or deaths in custody.
Questioner: Lord Knight of Weymouth (LAB - Life peer)
Question
To ask Her Majesty’s Government how many prosecutions the Metropolitan Police Service and the Crown Prosecution Service have brought in respect of drug (1) possession, (2) dealing, and (3) smuggling, in London’s prisons since 1 January 2013.
Answered by Lord Keen of Elie
Prosecutions for drug possession, dealing and smuggling in a prison setting may be brought under a number of differing legislative provisions. Prosecutions for these sorts of offences investigated by the Metropolitan Police are conducted by the Crown Prosecution Service (CPS).
Whilst the CPS holds data relating to prosecutions brought under the Prisons Act 1952, it is not possible to disaggregate, from those relating to other proscribed articles, the number of offences relating to drug possession, dealing or smuggling.
The CPS also holds data relating to offences under the Misuse of Drugs Act 1971 but it is not possible to disaggregate those which have taken place in custodial institutions.
Section 9 of the Psychoactive Substances Act (PSA) 2016 provides the offence of possession of a psychoactive substance in a custodial institution. Since the Act came into force no prosecutions brought under this section have been completed in the London Area.
A national joint protocol between the CPS, Police and the National Offender Management Service is in force for crimes in prisons. The CPS works very closely with police and prison colleagues to ensure that acts of criminality within prisons are properly addressed.
Questioner: Lord Knight of Weymouth (LAB - Life peer)
Question
To ask Her Majesty’s Government how many prosecutions the Crown Prosecution Service has brought under the Corporate Manslaughter and Corporate Homicide Act 2007 in respect of a death or deaths in custody.
Answered by Lord Keen of Elie
There have been no cases to date in which the CPS has brought charges under the Corporate Manslaughter and Corporate Homicide Act 2007 in respect of a death or deaths in custody.
Questioner: Lord Knight of Weymouth (LAB - Life peer)
Question
To ask Her Majesty’s Government how many cases under the Corporate Manslaughter and Corporate Homicide Act 2007 have been actively considered by the Crown Prosecution Service since 2011 in respect of a death or deaths in custody.
Answered by Lord Keen of Elie
The Crown Prosecution Service (CPS) does not hold data on the number of cases it has considered for a charge of corporate manslaughter in respect of a death or deaths in custody. CPS information systems do not allow for cases involving deaths in custody to be dis-aggregated from the tally of cases in which corporate manslaughter was considered.