The CPS may find it hard to raise its game as budget cuts bite

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Keir Starmer QC, director of public prosecutions, and his Crown Prosecution Service colleagues hosted a media drinks party last week to demonstrate their enthusiasm for transparency and to show off their new Southwark, London HQ. But subsequent press headlines will have punctured the party mood.They reported the fact that Starmer had apologised to the victim in a case of alleged sexual assault which collapsed due to failings by the CPS.

The victim reported a sexual assault in March 2008. Her alleged attacker was due to face trial in March 2009.

On the first day of the trial, the CPS barrister mishandled a special measures application for her to be screened while giving evidence, and failed to warn her not to mention in front of the jury that the defendant was already in prison. As a result, the victim gave evidence facing the accused and the jury was discharged when she inadvertently mentioned he was in prison.

Instead of applying for a new trial the CPS, without consulting the victim, offered no evidence against the defendant. When she raised her concerns with the CPS, the victim was blamed for the collapse of the trial.

She issued a claim for judicial review, seeking a declaration that the CPS had breached her rights under the Human Rights Act and damages.

The CPS conceded the claim and admitted it had breached its positive duty under article 3 of the European Convention on Human Rights by failing to prosecute the alleged assailant.

At a mediation in June 2010, the CPS agreed to pay the victim £16,000 in damages and to undertake a series of measures to improve the service.

The chief Crown prosecutor for London, Alison Saunders, wrote a two-page letter to the victim in which she apologised for the failings of the CPS in the handling of her case, and indicated that best practice had not been followed.

Saunders accepted that the decision to offer no evidence was wrong and in breach of duties under the common law and article 3; that the failure to support the victim by not consulting her or informing her of the outcome was ‘unacceptable’; and that the special measures application should have been dealt with more ‘sensitivity, proactively and competently’.

Saunders also apologised for the fact that the CPS had made the alleged victim feel responsible for the collapse of the trial: ‘I accept unreservedly that you were not to blame in any way,’ she wrote.

Saunders said the CPS would be assessing whether the barrister instructed, the CPS prosecutor and their manager should continue to be authorised to do sexual cases.

Tony Murphy, the victim’s solicitor at London firm Bhatt Murphy, said: ‘Policies designed to improve the prosecution of sexual assault cases have been in place for years.

‘The criminal justice system does not need new policies; it needs transformational change to put those policies into practice. Without this victims will continue to be failed and perpetrators will continue to go free.’

Starmer said: ‘The chief Crown prosecutor has apologised personally and in writing to the complainant. I am extremely disappointed with the way in which this case was dealt with and I am very sorry for the distress these failings have caused the complainant. I am determined this will not happen again.’

Faced with likely budget cuts of at least 25%, however, life is not got going to get any easier for the DPP or his charges. He may have to lose some of his most senior and expensive lawyers; and those who are left will be under greater pressure.

How will an already stretched organisation be able to function adequately with reduced staff, let alone be able to make the ‘transformational change’ that Murphy suggest is necessary? Or will we see headlines like Monday’s?